Enemies popped into little globs of cartoon flesh when I landed a good swipe of my mechanical arms. Goblins wielded enormous blunderbusses that threw them to the ground when fired. Torchlight's strange, bright art has always been one of its strengths, and that tradition is on full-display in Frontiers.So much of a good action RPG is the little things, and I saw plenty of evidence of this in the Frontiers demo. I also encountered minable materials obviously intended for a yet-to-be-revealed crafting system. Enemy types vary in outdoor shared spaces along a day night cycle, with zany goblins gradually supplanted by shambling zombies as the sun went down. According to the developers, there will be lots of opportunities to customize the look and feel of your character in distinctive ways based on the gear you're finding. Nothing is too serious: this is, after all, a game that features dressing up robots in funny hats. ItвЂ™s the kind of world IвЂ™d want to spend a lot of time in. The vibe is a sort of cross between rounded organics and steampunk aesthetics, all clad in borderline-garish color, and it looks fantastic. TorchlightвЂ™s strange, bright art has always been one of its strengths, and that tradition is on full-display in Frontiers. no need for too much chit chat, letвЂ™s just go kill some bad guys (though the devs promised that communications options will be available in release versions). I could easily see myself adopting similar behavior in a larger online space.

In fact, I instinctually latched onto my fellow playerвЂ™s path and started following her around and attacking groups of monsters in the weaving lanes of a goblin encampment. IвЂ™m not exactly the most social of online gamers, so I was happy to discover the interaction didnвЂ™t feel obtrusive at all. I only encountered one other player, a Dusk Mage piloted by a developer, in one of the shared areas. I didnвЂ™t have much opportunity to observe the multiplayer aspect of the game firsthand as I didnвЂ™t experience much of it. The developers plan for these areas to eventually become shared space for special community events, as well as serving as common ground for traversal and mingling with crowds. In the online space, there's no need for too much chit chat, let's just go kill some bad guys.A scaled-down version of one of these areas will be on display at Gamescom this week when Torchlight Frontiers makes its public gameplay debut. The change is part of TorchlightвЂ™s shift toward a game-as-a-service philosophy and shared world design. Torchlight: Frontiers adds a third type of area: wider public spaces where larger groups of players can mingle MMO-style fighting respawning enemies, partying up, and banding together to descend into the deeper darkness of a procedurally-generated dungeon beneath. TorchlightвЂ™s action-RPG environments have traditionally been concentrated in two areas: statically-designed towns where players shop, craft, and rearm, and procedurally-generated dungeons where individual heroes or small parties hunt monsters and find loot. WeвЂ™d like to thank our dedicated player base for supporting us and providing such insightful feedback during early development.Get your first look at Torchlight Frontiers in action with the gameplay trailer above. вЂњDuring development, you often discover what type of product a game was meant to be and we foundВ Torchlight FrontiersВ was meant to be a true successor toВ Torchlight IВ &В II.Д«ased on this and extensive feedback from our Alpha testers, we decided it was time to take the game back to its roots and model it after the classicВ TorchlightВ games that ARPG fans have come to love. вЂњWhen we started developingВ Torchlight Frontiers, we were focused on creating a shared-world experience. Max Schaefer, CEO of Echtra Games and co-founder of theВ TorchlightВ franchise, explains in a press release sent to Twinfinite: Renamed Torchlight III, itвЂ™s set to more closely follow the structure of the original games, which includes a change from free-to-play to a premium model available via Steam.

Echtra Games has announced plans to switch its hack-and-slash dungeon crawler Torchlight Frontiers into a fully-fledged sequel to Torchlight 1 & 2, which was developed by the now-defunct Runic Games.

Torchlight frontiers gameplay