Not to disparage a job well done, but PR for Torchlight II--an action RPG by Runic Games due later this year--must be a somewhat easy job. After all, the first game sold over one million copies and its sequel offers several features that even the much-hyped Diablo III won’t have. In Torchlight II you will be able to use and create mods, won’t have to be online all the time, and it will have both multiplayer both online and over LAN. But there is, of course, far more to Torchlight II than this favorable comparison as I learned during this year’s gamescom.

If you played Torchlight, you’ll be able to jump right into Torchlight II. The core of the game is untouched, so you still start by choosing a class before clicking monster hordes to death, collecting tons of loot, and becoming the greatest hero of all times. Another thing the team preserved and refined is the art style. Like the first game, Torchlight II mixes fantasy and steam-punk. You’ll notice this in the world, the monsters, and of course the characters--though the playable classes from the first game will only return as NPCs. Instead, the game will offer four entirely new classes of which the third, the Berserker, was revealed at gamescom. He bashes his enemies with his fists or claws, shouts at them, and can even call upon totems to grant him magic powers such as fiery breath. The five skills shown were versatile and fun and fit very well into his straight-forward all-in style. We also already know about the fourth class, but if we told you, Wonder Russel, Runic Games’ Minister of Culture, will break our faces. So we’ll leave that to her. Since the session contained only two players and Runic is still working on the skills, I sadly didn’t really see any actual group action. But I’m fairly sure that there will be group effects and skills. While you had only NPC companions in the first Torchlight, there were already spells like “Heal” there that affected all party members. So it’s safe to assume those will be back and will likely make for very powerful player combinations.

New heroes aside, Torchlight II also offers more ways to customize your characters cosmetically, such as gender and hair style, among other features. That way you hopefully won’t meet “yourself” online all too often.

Adding multiplayer is by far the most important change compared to the first Torchlight. It’s not clear yet what the maximum amount  of players are for a single session, but Max Schaefer, co-founder of Runic Games as well as Blizzard North (Diablo, Diablo II), told me that it will be at least four. He also explained that you’ll be able to use the same characters for single and multiplayer. And mods won’t be restricted to singleplayer, but will be allowed for multiplayer as well. While all of this is basically a written invitation for cheaters, Max isn’t bothered by the thought and explained that they’re not aiming for a stable economy as Diablo III does, but rather for you to have fun the way you want--including cheating. To ensure everyone plays by the same rules, all players need to have the same mods installed, and if you want to make sure you don’t play with (random) cheaters, you can always guard your game with a password. There will also be a player-versus-player component, but at this point Max doesn’t see them putting much effort into it. They’re probably going to enable duels without looking much into character balance. Sadly, PVP wasn’t activated for the hands-on demo, so that’s all the information for now. Instead the session included two players, a boss, vast areas, and more loot than you can carry (luckily the pets are back). 

The second big change is the addition of an overworld. In the first Torchlight you had one hub city from which you went down into randomly generated dungeons. While the surroundings and enemies changed every five levels, you spent most of your time in a giant cave. Now Torchlight morphs into something much bigger. While you’ll still do about half of your heroic duty crawling through dungeons, you’ll spend the other half on the surface moving between the three new cities in a vast world consisting of anything from grassland to icy tundra. Like the dungeons, this world will be randomly generated every time you jump into the game with only a few fixed landmarks. But don’t worry, you won’t have to cross the same steppes over and over again. Torchlight II will make use of a waypoint system to quickly warp you through areas you already finished. Though exploring is never futile, since you might always stumble over a new dungeon, a key to a mysterious chest, or even a random quest giver.

A smaller change of the known formula will be the system of the ember stones. You won’t be able to combine low tier embers to higher ones anymore. According to Max the ability to merge them kept players from ever using embers when they hadn’t yet reached their full potential. With that feature cut, you’ll hopefully use the stones early on. Also the attributes are supposed to be more unique and stronger now, fueling the urge to use them even more. The enchantment system will also be changed, simply because it took a lot of fun out of actually finding good items. After all, with enough gold you could effortlessly create extremely awesome equipment. So now the enchanter will only be able to put specific attributes on your weapons while others will only be found on actual drops.That way looking for a new life stealing staff brings back the thrill of going through gazillion tons of loot (where of course you will find anything but that very staff).

Another awesome feature of the original Torchlight was your pet. Either a wolf or a cat ran, fought, and even looted for you. Even more awesome: If your inventory was full, but you didn’t feel like walking back to town, you could simply send your pet to sell the unwanted stuff while you kept hacking and slashing. This feature will be back in Torchlight II, but it’s one of those I didn’t really see in the demo. There was a small ferret with each character which might hint at new animals, but in general the pets, as well as the fishing mini-game, are still being overhauled. The fish will have stronger and more awesome effects on your pets this time, but that’s all that Max and Wonder let slip.

Torchlight II seems to be to Torchlight what Diablo II was to Diablo: While the core stays the same, everything’s bigger, more refined, and seemingly better. New--and more--heroes will fight in a vastly grown and versatile world, and finally they will do so together. The addition of multiplayer will allow players to delve even deeper into this mystical steam-punky world when Torchlight II is released later this year. For some, it will be a simple bridge until the release of Diablo III, for others, it might even take Diablo’s place as the king of action RPGs. That said, I am thrilled to get my hands on the final version to see if it can live up to the excellent first impression.