If you’re wondering when you can play Torchlight Frontiers, the upcoming Torchlight MMO, we’ve got the lowdown here.

Torchlight II recently came out on modern-gen consoles with beefy update to make it one of the brightest, smoothest, and most colorful action-RPGs ever made. Despite its obvious polish, it might surprise some gamers to know that Torchlight II is actually seriously old. It first came out in 2012 shortly after the release of Diablo 3. While Diablo made headlines for one of the rockiest launches in Blizzard history, Torchlight quietly gained fame as being the fun and fantastical alternative to Diablo’s grim, gothic, and buggy release.

It’s hard to not compare the two games. Besides sharing a genre, Torchlight and Diablo share the same roots. After Diablo 2, Blizzard changed directions with its development to focus on World of Warcraft, leaving Diablo by the wayside. Several developers left Blizzard to form Runic Games in order to focus on the classic hack-and-slash RPG action that they loved so much.

The original Torchlight came out in 2010 with several notable upgrades over the Diablo formula, namely pets that could do the job of selling your junk items for you. However, it was still generally seen as a Diablo clone for its procedurally generated dungeons and point-and-click gameplay.

Torchlight II built on the original with a more fleshed-out gameworld, a grander story, and an additional character class. It was also cheap; you could pick up Torchlight II for just $20 compared to Diablo 3’s $60.

The Beginning Of A New Frontier

Although critically successful and well-received by fans, Torchlight II’s steampunk and cartoonish nature didn’t quite steal as many Diablo fans as Runic would have liked. The studio swapped focus to their new adventure game, Hob, leaving plans for a Torchlight MMO for later. Then Runic closed down in 2017 which made it seem like that MMO would never happen.

But the dream of Torchlight MMORPG never died--it just changed hands. Echtra Games formed as an off-shoot of Runic in 2016 and started development of the ambitious project, finally giving an official announcement in August of 2018. Trailers revealed Torchlight Frontiers a game that was definitely the same Torchlight aesthetic but with a massively expanded scope.

First, the game is a true marriage of Torchlight’s classic ARPG gameplay and more typical MMORPG features such as a persistent town, quest givers, and crafting using materials found in the world. While the overworld seems to be persistent, dungeons are procedurally generated just as they were in previous Torchlight games.

Torchlight Frontiers does take a few good ideas from Diablo 3. Gone is the old skill progression of being given skill points to create a single build, and instead players have the option of swapping skills whenever they want. Pets, however, are still a major feature in preventing inventory management from becoming too much of a hassle.

So far there are three classes in Torchlight Frontiers: the Dusk Mage, the Railmaster, and the Forged. The Dusk Mage seems to be the equivalent of the Ember Mage from Torchlight II, while the Railmaster is an analog of the Engineer from the previous game. The Forged is a brand new class that is essentially a steampunk robot that has achieved sentience through magic or mishap. It seems entirely unique and a big selling point on Torchlight Frontiers.

RELATED: Torchlight II On Switch Comes With An Exclusive Fat Unicorn Pet

Horizons Are Not Fast Approaching

Torchlight Frontiers
via Echtra Games
Torchlight Frontiers

Echtra Games has given Torchlight Frontiers a 2019 release date, but so far it doesn’t seem on track to meeting that target. The game is currently in closed alpha, and although content updates are proceeding apace, there is still no confirmed release date as of the time of this writing.

We’re also not sure how the game will be monetized. Previous Torchlight games were cheap, single-payment items that gave you a wholly contained experience (with the occasional patch and feature update). Torchlight Frontiers is said to be based more on the “games as a service” model, which might mean monthly subscription fees, microtransactions, or both.

It’s hard to say how Torchlight Frontiers will shake out--maybe the game will have a more modern monetization model that includes a single fee for the game, other fees for larger DLC, and a battle-pass for faster character progression. But we can likely assume that Torchlight Frontiers will follow the same pattern as previous games and price itself to undercut the competition. Torchlight has been--and should always be--a great game at a great price.

(Source: Echtra Games)

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