Torchlight (2009)
Torchlight is a 2009 role-playing (rpg) video game made by Runic Games and World Domination Industries, Inc..
Bright where its rivals are grim, Torchlight sends a lone adventurer beneath a boomtown built on a magical ore called Ember. Runic Games, founded by veterans of Diablo and Fate, kept the formula simple and warm: descend randomized dungeons, fill your bags with loot, haul it back to town to sell, and send your pet cat or dog to run the shopping for you. Three classes, a light story, and an art style closer to a storybook than a dungeon. A compact, generous crawler that asks little and returns a steady drip of reward.
Quick answers
What is Torchlight about?
Bright where its rivals are grim, Torchlight sends a lone adventurer beneath a boomtown built on a magical ore called Ember. Runic Games, founded by veterans of Diablo and Fate, kept the formula simple and warm: descend randomized dungeons, fill your bags with loot, haul it back to town to sell, and send your pet cat or dog to run the shopping for you. Three classes, a light story, and an art style closer to a storybook than a dungeon. A compact, generous crawler that asks little and returns a steady drip of reward.
When was Torchlight released?
Torchlight was released on 27 October 2009.
Who made Torchlight?
Torchlight was made by Runic Games, World Domination Industries, Inc. and JoWooD Entertainment AG.
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Torchlight in our writing
- Companion guide: The CRPG: The Complete Guide to Computer Role-Playing Games
A few thoughts on Torchlight
Diablo is the obvious ancestor, sharper and darker in tone; Fate, from some of the same designers, is its cozier cousin. For the same clean loop of descend, loot, and repeat with more scope and friends, the sequel Torchlight II opens the world up and adds real online co-op.
Cheerful art hiding real stakes underneath
Torchlight looks like a storybook while its dungeons stay genuinely dangerous, a contrast shared with The Girl Who Drank the Moon's gentle-looking fairy tale, Asterix's comic village adventures, Sailor Moon's bright magical-girl battles, Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir's superhero-lite charm, and Assassination Classroom's cheerful classroom hiding a life-or-death plot.
Fantasy adventures built around collecting power one drop at a time
The randomized dungeons and loot drops that define Torchlight show up in other forms across The Witcher 3's gear-hunting open world, Skyrim's dungeon-diving loot runs, God of War's steady upgrade grind, and Inuyasha's shard-by-shard hunt for a shattered jewel across feudal Japan.