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Torchlight III had a long road to release. It spent years in development as Torchlight Frontiers, a free-to-play ever-expanding multiplayer RPG. During the beta process for that game, the decision was made to totally scrap it and turn it into Torchlight III instead, a more “traditional” follow-up to the venerated action RPG franchise.
Earlier this year, Torchlight III launched in early access for PC…and I kind of hated it. It was a truly early half-finished product at best, with worlds that were made for a much larger game, a progression system that felt awkwardly out of place in a paid product, and combat that was riddled with lag due to a seeming over-reliance on constant server communication.
Somehow, the developers at Echtra games managed to turn that mess around. The final release of the game hit PC and consoles just a couple of weeks ago, and although it’s a bit light on overall content compared to other popular games in the genre, it’s now delightfully fun to play. Sure, on consoles it’s locked to 30 frames per second, but it’s got enough of that classic Torchlight magic to be worth the asking price.
I say all this to establish my personal background here. I went on a rollercoaster ride with this game, but now in its final mostly good state, it’s…
