14 DAY TRIAL // Runic Games, the studio behind the very successful and highly pirated Torchlight, has confirmed that the sequel, Torchlight 2, won't be making its intended release scheduled of late 2011, because the teams wants to properly polish the experience and avoid the very crowded holiday season.
Torchlight impressed through its deep role playing, dungeon crawler mechanics, giving classics like Diablo II a run for their money.
Now, with Torchlight 2, the team at Runic wants to improve upon the experience from the original in every way and was set to release it right at the end of this year.
Sadly, Runic Games president Travis Baldree has announced on the website of the game that Torchlight 2 will be delayed.
"We've come to the realization, however, that getting a game of this scope up to the quality and polish level we want to achieve is going to take a little longer; especially since we want to run a small beta before release to ensure that our launch is smooth," Baldtree said.
The Runic executive went on to say that while Torchlight went on to become quite popular, the final build of the game wasn't up to par, so the team doesn't want to repeat this experience with its sequel.
"We feel strongly that we should apply [this extended development time] to make this the best game we can make and hopefully one that you'll enjoy and continue to want to play in the future. We've probably had 18 months of full development time on it so far - not excessively long yet, as far as that goes. The amount of time we need to take it the rest of the way is relatively small."
"We feel pretty safe in saying that if you enjoyed Torchlight at all, this sequel is superior in every respect. Right now our job is to ensure that the quality level is consistent all the way to the end."
Baldtree also joked about the array of other high quality games that have appeared in the last few weeks, saying Torchlight fans are already busy with the likes of Skyrim, Uncharted 3, Skyward Sword, Assassin's Creed: Revelations or Dark Souls, so it's probably for the best that Torchlight 2 will appear in early 2012.