The studio admits it can't compete with Diablo 3

Sep 5, 2015 04:43 GMT  ·  By

Runic Games, the developer behind the pretty popular Torchlight titles, confirms that it's taking a break from the dungeon crawling series and won't attempt to debut a Torchlight 3 anytime soon. The reasoning comes from the popularity of Diablo 3 as well as the team's desire to try something new with the recently revealed Hob.

The dungeon crawling role-playing game genre has been around for quite a few decades as many hardcore fans have fond memories of titles like Diablo 1 or 2, released by Blizzard.

In recent years, a pretty serious competitor arrived in the form of Torchlight, which was developed by Runic Games, a team formed by several Blizzard veterans. While the initial title gained a lot of fans as there were no serious competitors, Torchlight 2 arrived in fall of 2012, just a few months after Diablo 3 launched on PC and Mac.

At that time, Runic was confident in the ability to compete with Blizzard's behemoth, thanks to the lower price, the emphasis on offline play, as well as the wider variety of weapons, classes, and roles.

Torchlight 3 isn't coming anytime soon

However, after several years, it seems that Diablo 3 is the victor, as Runic President Marsh Lefler confirms to IGN that Torchlight 2 lost the battle with Blizzard's game.

As such, when you combine the continued success of Diablo 3 with Runic's desire to try something new, the studio isn't willing to invest in a Torchlight 3 anytime soon.

"Let’s admit it, Diablo 3 is killing it right now," he explains. "Diablo 3 is a really fun game. Not that Torchlight 2 isn’t a fun game, it is, but it’s just different."

Right now, Runic Games is working on Hob, the recently revealed stylized survival experience that it wants to debut across PC as well as on consoles in the future. Right now, however, very little is known about the experience so you can expect to hear more in the following months.