Torchlight III does do a lot of good things both for its respective series and the dungeon crawling genre as a whole. However, for a game that has been seemingly cooking for a decade now, from ideas to actual game development, it sure does back peddle a bit. Torchlight III almost feels like an expansion to the last game, 2012's Torchlight II, rather than a full-fledged sequel.
Knowing the background of this starting out as a free-to-play game makes some of these confusing decisions more sensible. It is in dire need of these fixes and until they get done, Torchlight III can be hard to recommend beyond the most diehard of RPG looter fans.
10 Consolidate Single-player And Multiplayer
This decision makes absolutely no sense. Why separate single-player and multiplayer? The previous games did not go down this road and Torchlight III's biggest rival, and inspiration, Diablo III didn’t either.
If a player doesn’t know this and starts a solo campaign then convinces some friends to get Torchlight III for multiplayer, they are in for a rude awakening.
9 Pause In Single-player
If the developer, Echtra Games, decides to keep single and multiplayer separate, then so be it; however, that also means each mode should have certain qualities changed.
For example, if one pauses the game or goes into the character menu, Torchlight III won’t actually pause. Basically, enemies will still attack the player. Making the game actually pause in single-player would be a huge fix.
8 Needs More Character Customization
Even though Torchlight III can be enjoyed solo, make no mistake, this is a multiplayer-focused experience. Given that focus, it then makes no sense why the character customization options are so few.
Should the game not want players to feel unique when among friends or strangers? The depth of options does not have to rival Cyberpunk 2077, but it needs this issue fixed in some fashion.
7 Add A Defense/Dodge Button
Classes have some defensive skills that act as a block or dodge mechanic. There is no button that works across all classes though meaning these are tied behind progression walls.
At least big enemy attacks are indicated by flashing circles or something. This allows players to move out of the way of harm, but there should still be some sort of natural defensive maneuver too.
6 Add Pet Co-op
Again, if the developer wants these modes separate, there is a way to bring multiplayer into single-player. Pets are controlled by the AI but wouldn’t it be cool if they could be controlled by a couch co-op partner?
This may not be an easy fix as implementing these changes in the code may be difficult. That said, when it comes to desirable Torchlight III changes, this easily makes the cut.
5 Add Directional Aiming
The various guns and bows in the game are great. However, what isn’t great is the aiming, as Torchlight III doesn’t give enough finesse to allow players to aim properly.
Allowing gamers to aim as if they were playing a twin-stick shooter by having the right stick shoot and aim simultaneously would help fix this problem. That right stick needs either this mechanic or the aforementioned defensive one.
4 Add A Dedicated Map Button
If there is one thing the PS4 controller has going for it, it is the touchpad. For a lot of games, this is used for a dedicated map button. This is not implemented in Torchlight III, which is a shame because the map as it stands now is problematic.
The overlay map is wonky, the corner map can be hard to read, and going into the full map from the menu takes longer than necessary. It is cumbersome in every form.
3 Checkpoint System
The portal system is a good aspect of Torchlight III. Seemingly any area can be warped back and forth from with minimal load times.
That said if one wants to quit and doesn’t use a portal, they are warped back to town. This can be chalked up to the player's fault for not creating a portal checkpoint, but checkpointing in a dungeon would also be a nice small fix to further alleviate this issue.
2 Expand The Fort Building
The fort building mechanic currently part of the game is fine. That is to say, building the fort adds more customization options for players.
It’s at least more expansive than the creation toolkit for characters. Despite that, there still needs to be more options in order to help players feel like their setups are unique in order to show them off to friends.
1 Cumbersome Menus
To piggyback on the map discussion earlier, the menus, in general, are chaotic. While navigating between the equipment, map, and skills menus is certainly not the worst setup, it is far from the best.
Fixing this issue might be problematic as it is already so ingrained into Torchlight III, but that just means the developer has a lot of work ahead of them. While Torchlight III is fun, it needs work.