Max and Erich Shaefer were the founders of Blizzard North, and helped to form Runic Games with Fate creator Travis Baldree. Runic brought us Torchlight in 2009 and offered a very affordable and fun stylized Diablo clone dungeon adventure game.
Diablo 3 was said to be in development as far back as 2001, but not officially announced until 2008. Now on the heels of Blizzard announcing Diablo 3 for May, Runic Games is estimating a June release for Torchlight 2!
The ideal launch date for T2, according to Schaefer, is about a month after D3. They’re not a slave to that time table, though. They want to make sure the game is as good as it can be.
It makes perfect sense that Torchlight 2 would want to follow the release of Diablo 3. With the decade or so of waiting for another Diablo game, Torchlight (along with others) tried to fill that dungeon crawl gap. Now with a fever pitch of excitement for another Diablo game actually becoming a reality it is a perfect time for another game in that genre to try and steal a bit of that spotlight.
I really liked Torchlight and I played the crap out of it. I loved the cartoony style and very light puzzle elements.
I understand that Torchlight is not nearly as elaborate in visual detail or character class customization as Diablo 3 promises. However, outside of the visuals, much of its game style seemed carbon copy from Diablo right down to inventory, upgrades, and paper doll style equipment management.
Makes you wonder what took so long to make Diablo 3?
But I don’t care. I already threw my money at Diablo 3. I just can’t wait for May 15th to get here!
I will probably play some Torchlight 2 when it comes out too.