Torchlight III

If you’ve spent any time on Steam, or the internet for that matter, over the last week I’m sure you’ve heard lots of opinions around the Early Access launch. To say that TL3 has had a bit of a rough go of it would be a gross understatement. It has endured some pretty rough criticism.
Having played a week’s worth of Early Access I think it’s fair to say that some of the concern is valid. However, I would caution against simply jumping on the rage train and writing the title off. The game has some solid mechanics and some fun ideas that, given some time and work, could help to shape it into a fun, engaging ARPG. So in true internet fashion, I’m going to highlight the things I love and the things I think I’m concerned about with Echtra’s new ARPG.
Like:
Unique Classes
One of my favourite features from Torchlight 2 that has made a return for the third installment is the unique class system. The Torchlight series likes to take the traditional concept of mage, warrior and rogue and throw it all out. Choosing to reinvent these concepts in fun and unique ways. In the case of Torchlight 3, classes like the Railmaster and Forge offer some interesting new mechanics for players to master. In the case of the former players can spec out their own personalized rail cars that will follow them around through the world. Essentially a pet class, the Railmaster offers a fun take on an otherwise standard class archetype.
In the case of the Forge, players essentially kit out a steampunk style robot allowing you to play multiple roles. If you're looking for a tank-style of play simply swapping out your torso equips you with literal tank treads (and the stats to match). Feeling like a ranged approach to combat? No problem; simply swap out your chest piece for a freakin cannon. It’s a unique approach that feels right at home in the world of Torchlight.
Forts and Crafting
I typically hate player housing and crafting. Generally crafting is way too much work and I just don’t care to be bothered. It’s a me thing; I’m lazy. In the case of housing, I’ve only seen a couple of good examples of player housing (RIP WildStar). For the most part, they feel like a waste of time.
TL3, however, has created a great space for you as a player to relax (and craft) when not out hacking and slashing. It comes in the form of Player Forts. These personalized spaces are completely customizable. When I say completely I mean it in the full sense of the word. Every piece of foliage, every little rock and every structure can be moved, rotated and placed within your fort.
There is a wide range of items to be crafted and placed. Momentos from your travels can be hung on the wall or stuck in the ground as a testament to your mouse clicking prowess. Mechanically it works exceptionally well, is easy to learn and fun to play with.
Thankfully though the fort is more than just a pretty face. All of your crafting, storage and some of your progression is handled here. Tools and workbenches can be constructed and placed allowing you to quickly access anything you are currently working on.
Speaking of crafting, as someone who just hates crafting, I really like the crafting here. It’s streamlined and simple to use, focuses more on complimenting your gear as opposed to replacing it and once again is easy to learn. Material gathering is a straightforward affair and doesn’t require you to spend hours out of combat trying to farm that last piece of wood or stone.
Player Hubs
One of the critiques that almost set the collective internet on fire was that the Early Access version of Torchlight 3 didn’t have a single-player mode.
I’ve really enjoyed the centralized player hubs that come in the form of each Act’s town. Its actually great to be able to chat with others, team up for random quests and, heaven forbid, develop some friendships that otherwise wouldn’t have been possible without a shared space to converse. My snarking typing aside, the player hubs has been a great addition to the franchise.
Concern:
Skill Trees
I would agree that we have seen the traditional three tree system reduced to two and thus does raise a bit of a yellow flag for long time fans of the series. That said, I’ve found that the skill trees currently available offer some fun options for play, allowing you to focus in and build the type of character you want to play.
In addition, TL3 offers a secondary skill system that is unlocked at level 5, 20 and 40. These skills seem to transcend class and offer an additional level of progression and class building.
I would like to see the skill trees refined a little more as we get closer to a full launch. There is still some room for synergy builds with abilities and it would be nice to see the current secondary skills have a little more weight to them, seeing as you can only slot three. Hopefully, the team can make some adjustments to help quell the raging masses, and by raging masses, I mean the internet.
Combat...well sort of
Combat in TL3 is a mixed bag, to be honest. On the one hand, skills feel unique and are visually appealing. When you engage in combat there are times where it feels engaging and works hard to find a balance between pure hacking mayhem and skill. On the other hand, activating skills can feel delayed or even non-responsive, movement feels a bit slow and boss encounters feel very one dimensional. As combat is the backbone of ARPG genre it’s a bit disconcerting that combat isn’t as responsive as the earlier titles in the franchise.
This is one area I really hope the team gets sorted. Combat in Torchlight 2 felt great; it had, for lack of a better word, perfect pacing. This pacing seems to be lacking in TL3. It feels like the foundation for great combat is there but as of the time of writing hasn’t quite hit its stride.
Pets
Perhaps its because I grew up before pokemon was a thing but I just don’t see the need to catch them all or to use them in general. That is unless they serve some real functional purpose. At present TL3’s pet system is little more than a glorified on-demand shopbot and mobile buff. In a game where I can instantly teleport to a shop and be back in the action faster than it takes for my pet to do the same exercise, pets feel underutilized.
For instance, I would love to see them take a more active roll in combat. Sure they add a little buff to me and my party but why couldn’t they have their own dedicated skill trees. Why couldn’t my trusty hound named Pig be spec’d to taunt, drop and roll over the enemies? Or better yet, why couldn’t they have skills that work in tandem with some of my own class (or secondary) skills. The possibilities really are there but I’m concerned I’ll be stuck with nothing but my shop-bot come launch.
Finally:
Is Torchlight 3 the dumpster fire that the Steam reviews tell me it is? No, not at all. Has it reached its final form? No, not at all. Torchlight 3 is an early access title that is attempting to transition both its genre and pay model all while trying to hold to the things that make the series great. The game has some great core mechanics that need refinement. My hope is that with actual constructive feedback from players, the team at Echtra Inc will be able to refine the rough edges, smooth out the bumps and create the Torchlight experience we have all come to love.

TLDR: You might have some mindless fun, but the game has a ton of unfinished ideas and is *clearly* a scrapped MMO. My heart breaks for what it could have been. Find it on sale.
Full thoughts:
I'm not saying there isn't any fun to be had with Torchlight 3. I'm leaving this "recommended" review because there is some mindless, grindy, "ooh pretty loot colors" fun to be had. I also find the combat to be snappy and enjoyable. There was clearly a great game scattered about the cutting room floor on this one.
But every time I find myself getting lost in that Torchlight-brand "flow" (of combat, loot, optimizing, and dungeon crawling), I find some reminder that this game is an empty, scrapped MMO. Even the install directory betrays this fact (all the game files are named "Torchlight Frontiers").
Large, open areas meant to be filled with players that are totally vacant. Long stretches of walking between combat encounters will bore you. A fort-building mode with very little actual utility will make you question "why?" Quests that *always* loop you back to the central hub (likely meant to also be filled with players) are cumbersome. This feels like year one Destiny all over again.
Hard to recommend for full price, and absolutely TRAGIC it turned out this way. I wish Echtra all the best, given the game's difficult dev cycle. But this isn't the Torchlight you knew, and I'm not convinced it's worth the full $40.

OK, first thing first - Torchlight 3 is not an upgraded version of Torchlight 2 like TL2 was to 1. It is a completely new game with different mechanics some are similar to those in TL2 and some are not. At this time it is also not finished so if you are expecting a finished and polished product then don't buy it. If you do not want to have your characters wiped at some point - do not buy it as well. The game is buggy and it is laggy and there are large chunks of content missing even when compared to the beta version that was running before the early-access. It also has a lot of potential.
Torchlight 3 currently features 4 classes each having 14 class skills. Those are somewhat arbitrary separated into two skill trees but you don't have to have invested in any skill in a skill tree to get any other skill in the same tree effectively rendering the tree grouping thematic rather than mechanical. Each skill has 10 levels and the skill morphs 2 times - once at level 3 and once at level 10. The morphs are mechanical changes o the way the skill works and sometimes they interact with the class-specific mechanics and sometimes they are just situational bonuses or additional elements of the skill. When you reach level 6 in each skill a passive unlocks that often does not have anything to do with the skill. That passive will be active even if you do not have the skill on your hotbar so effectively you have 14 active and 14 passive skills kind of rolled up into one and you would get some skills for the passive exclusively and some for the active exclusively and sometimes you would be happy that the two are tied to the same skill.
Additionally early in the game you get to pick one of 5 relics for your character. Those relics are shared across all classes and level up independently. Each relic kind of has 2 active and 3 passive skills and these are tied to a specific damage type and its procs(poison, burning, bleeding, shock, freeze). The relic is usually a support to your build but it is possible to build your entire character around a certain relic.
Next, you have the pet system. It is kind of under developed. You basically collect pet skins and abilities from special chests near boss fights and the pet skills offer some basic auras and periodical buffs for your character and some attacks(my favourite is the pet farting and poisoning the enemies around it).
Itemization is kind of standard fair for the genre with items of four rarities dropping with different number of random affixes. White or normal items don't have any additional affixes but only the basic item stats - damage for weapons and resistances or health for the armor-type. Green Magic items have 1 additional affix, Blue Rare items have 2 additional affixes and Yellow Legendary items have 3 additional affixes and a set legendary affix. The affixes matter but everything below Legendary item is basically a simple stat-stick. Still the legendary items and their Mayhem Affixes offer mechanics that morph existing character skills or provide additional mechanics on actions like basic attacks, potion consumption, relic activation, skill casts, getting hit, etc. Those effects are pretty powerful and most builds would be build around those items. Additionally those items usually come in sets. The set does not provide a stat or effect bonus like they do in other games but instead if you have 3 items of the same set equipped the mayhem affixes of the individual items get enhanced. There are about 150 legendary items all with unique mayhem affixes currently in the game.
The last part of the character building process is the legendarium. Basically you can choose to disassemble a legendary item and gain it's legendary affix in the legendarium and you can have 3 of those affixes active as passive skills without having the items equipped. Those would get buffs from set bonuses but do not count as an equipped item when counting the number of set items equipped.
There is also an enchantment system that is kind of an reimagining of the standard socket system. Basically some items drop with enchantment slots and you can put enchantments in those slots. The enchantment you put in provides a random stat bonus chosen from a set for that enchantment type. Additional enchantment types drop as recipes along with other loot.
There are also some other minor mechanics such as sacrificing items to permanently increase your loot and collecting account-wide defense bonuses the more you fight against certain enemies as well as a housing mechanic but those do not affect the gameplay significantly.
What are the problems with the game?
Well, first off - there are only 14 active class skills. They do provide variety but more are obviously welcome. The devs have said in the past that they do not plan to add more in the future but with the recent massively negative feedback over the lack of active skills that might change.
Same goes for the amount of relics - only 5 at the moment. No word if they are going to add more but one can only hope.
The pet skill system is also underdeveloped and would benefit from more variety. Again - no word on what is going to be happening here.
The lag makes the combat really not responsive at times.
The resistances mechanic is kind of pointless because you would generally encounter only one element that the enemies are using per act. That might change with the endgame mechanics that are coming at a later date but it is not really a certainty and the game would benefit if any element can be used by enemies anywhere.
The UI is huge and kind of ugly when you are in the menus. It is functional but it was also meant to be easily accessible with a controller on a TV and it kind of shows. The devs said that UI scaling is coming in the future.
There is no stat-distribution system or anything to substitute it. As this is a massively requested feature in a recent post the devs have said that they are going to implement a system to address this issue.
The levels are randomly generated but are also pretty linear so most of the times you are running through a long weirdly shaped corridor rather than exploring a maze or an overworld zone.
The visual variety is not great. There are a few enemy types and a few world tile-sets and because of that everything looks kind of the same in each act. The first one with the goblins is probably the worst as even different goblin types kind of look the same and are hard to distinguish.
Overall I would say that the game does have a solid core but needs more content and variety in everything. The devs are competent and are listening to player feedback - every single system in the game has been reworked multiple times since the initial alpha release of the game due to player feedack. Unfortunately that did not leave a lot of time for the developers to work on content and variety and the game has suffered because of that. This game is not ready for release in its current form and while I would recommend it I would do so only to people who want to actively provide feedback on a developing product and not to people who just want to play an aRPG.

So I've been playing Torchlight III since it was called Torchlight Frontiers in closed alpha. It has been a tough road for this game, but I've been rooting for it along the way because of how dearly I look back upon the first two Torchlight games. I applauded the switch from the Frontiers model to a more traditional structure. However, I was disappointed when they pushed it into an early access beta. I felt like it was too soon, and the game needed more work. The devs put in that work, though, and addressed a lot of the issues I had with it. When the game was pushed out to 1.0, I still felt like it needed a bit more time. That's where I stand now. It still needs more time.
TLDR: If you want something to dump 1,000 hours into, you will be disappointed. If you want a lighter ARPG experience that doesn't require a lot of energy to get into, TL3 is a good buy. Beware of bugs, mine have been minor but other players have reported much more serious bugs.
I am having a lot of fun playing TL3, don't get me wrong. However, as a sequel to Torchlight II, I can't help but feel like it falls short. More than likely, I am looking at my time with TL2 with a hefty dose of nostalgia, but at the time, it felt like something really special. TL3 doesn't. This game feels like another ARPG. It's a good ARPG, but it's not something remarkable. Perhaps that's more to do with the state of the genre right now. Since TL2, Diablo III got its shit together and became a good game, Path of Exile blew up to become a massive success, and smaller ARPGs like Grim Dawn have been released with fantastic support. Torchlight III has been released into a very different world than its older brother. It has far more competition.
The core of Torchlight III is solid. Playing the game moment-to-moment deleting mobs of enemies is as fun and satisfying as one would expect from an ARPG. The system for character builds isn't the deepest, but it gets the job done. It doesn't have the wild openness of Path of Exile's skill tree and gem system, but that's not exclusively a negative. It's a lot easier to work out a build in TL3, and I feel like it's very hard to make a "bad" choice. Halfway through my first character, I thought I had chosen a bad relic for it. However, a little change in build and re-allocating skill points, and I was rocking it and having a ton of fun.
The stuff around that core isn't as solid. The game has a story. What that story is, I can't tell you because I forget about it as soon as one of the very rare minimally-animated comic-like cutscenes is done. There are "audio log" style lore bits scattered around the world, but nothing in the game has done anything to get me to care about paying attention to them. The areas within each act are very repetitive, too. Each act has a couple of tile sets and the game does almost nothing to make places feel distinct. At one point in the game, you are told to go to the "Chop Shop." Just hearing the name in the context of the world, you might think it is some graveyard of automatons with piles of broken robots and stuff. You go there and there is literally nothing to differentiate it from the previous place you came from. It looks exactly the same. It feels exactly the same.
Other ARPGs have done a lot to create interesting and unique areas, but every location in TL3 feels utterly generic, and that's sort of TL3 in a nutshell. It's a bit generic. A couple of the classes are cool unique ideas like the rail master and the automaton, but beyond that, it doesn't do much to inspire imagination. The skill system is the same. Everything in TL3 is done just well enough to get by. At least, it's done well enough for some people. Thankfully, any bugs I have encountered have been very minor, but some people are having much more serious problems, so anyone should be well aware of the potential for problems right now.
Since the beginning, my experience with Torchlight III through the alphas and beta has been one of hopeful optimism. When talking about it with friends, I'd always try to get across the idea that TL3 had the potential to be something really awesome, and that all it needed was some more time to get filled out and polished up. I still feel that was, but it is now a "full" released product. It's hard for me to be as lenient on it as I was in the past. It is not the special "buy it immediately" game that Torchlight II was. It is also not the absolute clusterfuck that Wolcen was. It's a good game, but not a great one.
So do I give this a thumbs up or thumbs down? Despite the possibly perceived negativity of all this, I still give it a recommendation. However, it comes with some caveats. Of you are a hardcore ARPG fan expecting to put 1,000 hours into the game, you are likely to be disappointed. If you are good with a lighter experience, then you will have fun. It's a good game to play while listening to podcasts or audiobooks or with a video on a second screen. It is also a good game to play with friends while you chat. You aren't going to find the depth of something like Path of Exile, but that also means you aren't expected to put in a lot of work into playing the game. I sincerely hope the devs can expand on TL3 and make it into the great game I think it can be.

*edit* following release they increased the price from $29.99/just under £24 to $39.99/£30.99, at this price id recommend waiting for a sale
... also do yourself a favour and play singleplayer (local), multiplayer (always online) is subject to lag and down time
first impressions review:
- people saying it isnt a torchlight game for *insert arbitrary reason* are being melodramatic (and ill get to this later)
- graphically underwhelming (so was TL2; intentionally so for it to run on your mothers integrated graphics laptop), the models are better than previous games (marginally so), the textures are bland low res affairs and the animations are really wonky (some are so choppy that you're unsure if they're purposefully trying to -badly- emulate claymation and others have absolutely no weight to them... i mean its a heavily cartoonised game and theres no squash, no stretch... hell half the time i cant even tell if my characters feet are planted on the ground
- theres some clunkiness around skill use; i believe you cant cancel a basic attack to use a skill so you have to wait for the attack to finish before the skill will go off; which is particularily annoying with slower weapons
- you dont get attribute points as you level; which means you cant vit spam in hardcore; but aside from that i dont think its a problem but it does remove some double dipping you could do (say focus to increase your weapon damage and then a skill that deals x% weapon damage AS elemental damage damage in tl2)
- everything scales based on weapon damage (including basic attacks; so dont worry that you need to use a greatsword to make your abilities hit hard because greatswords have similar weapon damage to longswords; but they have a higher scaling basic attack); theres no flat damage (which again is a big factor for vit spam HC builds in tl2)
on build diversity (this seems to be a hot button issue)
you have 4 classes; same as tl2, more than tl1
each class has its unique gimmick and 2 skill trees (as with previous torchlights theres no prerequisites so its not really a tree; but i digress), each tree has ONLY active abilities... curiously theyve made the choice to sort of roll passives into the skill tier system (so if you have x amount of points in one of the abilities you might get a passive that reduces all class skill cooldowns), this is less than both previous TL games (although more skills than TL1; whose trees were actually very sparce once you removed the passive stuff that all 3 classes had access to), but we arent finished yet
you have a (single) choice of 5(?) different 'relics'; this provides a third skill tree (and this one has passives); im unsure whether you can change your relic post character creation because again; first impressions (though id hope so because theres some restrictive passives)... but they look pretty damn impactful
theres also a 'legendarium' which im not totally clear on; it seems like if you find a legendary with a unique effect (ex: when you use light bolt also cast absolve -im probably getting the names wrong; but you get the idea) you can take that effect and have it in one of (up to) 3 slots without having to actually use the item
something that has been lost (as far as i can tell) are scrolls (those flavourless abilities you could slap on any class; the heal self, heal all, identify -side note; havent come across any unidentified gear thank god-, whirlwind, proficiencies etc); personally i dont think much is lost; maybe minion builds will disagree
... but wait; what about pets; they could learn scrolls... and in TL2 theyve kind of simplified it to 12(5 passive 7 active) different pet abilities (with up to 4 at a time), these cover most of the old scroll stuff; so you can have your pet aoe heal, lifesteal, summon skeletons and stun nearby enemies
speaking of pets; they obviously return; you start out with a choice of either a dog, llama or owl; with 2 available abilities; but theres no fish (or fishing; as far as i can tell) so instead of feeding your pet to change it you actually keep a roster of different pets; finding different pets on your adventures (or through the fame system) lets you use them; and if that new pet has an ability you dont have unlocked it becomes available on all your pets (so i found a hawk with a screech ability that stunned nearby enemies; and then gave that screech ability to my dog to roleplay a chihuahua) im unsure if different pets have different stats or if its purely cosmetic
fame is different; its earned in the same way but now theres 3 different fame 'tracks' that give you a bunch of different things as you progress, its a lot to unpack and the only thing i noticed was that theres pets in each of the three tracks
character creation is still shite; you have a couple of face/hair options per class (except forged; which only has 5 different options) per gender and then you can change hair/skin colour with each class retaining their respective stance/silhouette...
you have access to your 'fort' this is a customisable home base; again first impressions but; the decorating system seems fairly robust (no scaling items up or down or terrain changes; and rotation is locked to 15 degree increments but its not gridlocked and you can place stuff wherever; including inside other things); theres some utility placements and passive bonuses but again; first impressions
something im very fond of is how alt friendly everything is; the shared stash obviously returns but all your unlocks, your fame and your fort are shared across characters
you can also respec without having to cheat in a respec potion/use mods; although i dont know how much of a pain theyll be to obtain; you get 're-spectacles' that allow you to remove an invested skill point (per respectacle)
single player (offline; not available atm; will be at release) and multiplayer (online only) will use different characters (stash, fort etc)
no idea about mods/modability (though id expect them to not be allowed in multiplayer if possible at all)
oct 6th 2020 will be the last EA wipe

So, I played this game when it was in alpha and was meant to be free 2 play. The game was much worse and a lot more weak and shallow character progression. It's been a while since then and I had just bought this game to get back in. Looking at the reviews and the "mixed" had me worried.
The game has improved leaps and bounds and I'm actually pretty surprised the progress they've made. As for as the game itself, I'm not quite sure where people get this "mobile" feel from, I actually have zero clue (maybe because the contracts? not really sure of the correlation.)
I've really enjoyed my time. The character progression is vastly improved, I'm pretty bored of the classless arpgs, honestly its overdone at his point. I very much so enjoy individual classes, there is quite a bit to theorycraft with, the class trees and the weapon trees, the trees themselves are quite small but it partly makes up for it by upgrading the skill and getting bonus effects outside of baseline damage increases. I will say the stats on gear can be pretty boring, legendaries have nice effects but, the stats themselves are quite basic.
The comparison to old torchlight games being better, I mean I can see why people would say that, but in reality, this game isn't far off, and they are still working on the game, and will have conitnued updates after launch as far as I know.

First impression is good. Due to server issues wouldnt be able to play a lot (first day issues). But would be better with a deeper skill tree. There are 4 classes. Of course its still in EA and i am sure it will be no less than TL2. If you are a Torchlight fan, its a must buy. Even if you are not, worth a try for sure.