14 DAY TRIAL // In a recent interview, Max Schaefer, the chief executive officer of Runic Games declared that the reason for the sequel for Torchlight was giving the fans cooperative experience they asked for. The first installment in the series received very positive reviews that found only on big flaw and that was the lack of co-op.
“I think that we were overwhelmed by the response after Torchlight came out,” Schaefer told Gamasutra. “Everyone said they loved it, and there were generally good reviews, and I think that literally every comment in every review said it would’ve been better with co-op. The more we thought about it, we could give people what they’re asking for, and give them a nice, co-op Torchlight experience a lot faster than we could do an MMO. So it felt like there was a vacuum there.”
The other reason is that if this sequel manages to sell at least as well as the excellent original, then there will be more funds for the massively multiplayer online game that Runic has in mind for the Torchlight universe. Furthermore, developing a cooperative multiplayer version of Torchlight would allow the development team to gather more experience in online gaming, making the work on the MMO easier.
There was also talk of a console version of Torchlight II. While Schaefer does not exclude this possibility, the small size of the outfit really does not permit a port for the time being. “We talk about it a lot. The limiting factor on that is that we’re a small studio, and we want to stay small,” he said. “So it limits the vigor for which we should pursue some of these things. But it’s definitely something we’re talking about and working on. We think Torchlight would make a great console game. It’s just about make all the puzzle pieces fit.”
Torchlight II will be released in the spring of 2011 on the PC, at first through digital distribution, but a boxed version will follow shortly.