Damn, I loved this game when it first came out. I loved the art style and quirky characters like the steam powered robot or the character who summons little steam trains with guns or mortars and how adorable the little pets are. I loved the steampunk aesthetic and I loved playing it with my friends. There were some really cool mechanics and ideas like fort building for example, but sadly, it has seemingly been abandoned. There hasn’t been an update in months and when going into the online portion of the game, there aren’t any players running around the hub. It’s just… dead. According to the Steam Charts there were 207 players on the Steam version of the game and yes, I know that isn’t an accurate depiction of how many players are coming into the game as it is on multiple platforms but I’ve been going into the game on Xbox recently for the past month and I’ve seen a hub that is pretty much a ghost town. It’s sad, really.
So I went onto the game’s social media accounts and although still active there has been no mention of any updates or new content. It’s like the game is in limbo. This could be temporary (I hope) as development of the game has switched over back to Perfect World as Echtra Games were bought out by another company. So hopefully they will revive the game… hopefully.
The game has issues, one can clearly see it was originally designed as a free-to-play game that morphed into a regular game half way through development which turned it into a grind-fest and sadly the game lacks the amount of depth as the previous titles or other ARPGs… the game even got a name change as it was originally named Torchlight Frontiers before they changed things up half way through the making of the game. I sincerely hope the game is given another chance or at least a Torchlight IV comes along at some point.
But until then, press F to pay your respects to this title. (I hope not the franchise as well)
