Torchlight Frontiers is now Torchlight III, will be sold as a premium title
Publisher Perfect World Entertainment and developer Echtra Games have announced that Torchlight Frontiers is now Torchlight III. The game will be available on Steam for a single purchase price and playable offline.
Originally announced in 2018 from a new developer, Torchlight Frontiers was initially tackling the series with new shared-world online elements and an in-game real-money store. Over the course of 2019, the development team took feedback from early testers and made the decision to change their approach, making now Torchlight III a 'true successor' in the series. More information can be found in a blog post on the game's website
A new trailer for the renamed game can be found below, along with a summary of the revamped approach. A PC release is planned for 2020, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One ports coming later.
Alongside these changes to business model and distribution method, naturally there are many other exciting changes coming to Torchlight III.
- The game now follows the classic Act structure from previous titles. Players start at the Imperial Outpost besieged by goblin hordes. They then follow the trail of nether corruption into lands overtaken by Hyvid and finally reach the [redacted] Peaks and their cavernous underplaces ruled by the electrifying [redacted]
- Horizontal progression has been removed, so all Frontier-specific levels, gear stats, and scaling has been removed as well. We are returning our progression systems to better work in tandem with this.
- Most zones are now private by default to give a better play experience. Players can still meet each other in public town levels and form parties to play together in instanced combat zones.
- When creating your character, you can now select Online or Offline Mode. Characters made in Offline Mode do not require an internet connection to play, but will also not be able to participate in multiplayer games.
- We have removed the in-game real-money store.
While this is a huge sea change for Torchlight III, most of what our current players know about the game is still true:
- We will continue developing the game with constant feedback from our community through Closed Alpha (and soon Beta!) testing.
- We will continue releasing updates over the course of testing. Update 10 is coming Wednesday, January 29 at 10am PT. and brings the complete refactor into linear Acts, a third Frontier area, a fourth playable class, and a whole bunch of other new features and content.
- We plan to release the game on PC in 2020 with a console release following shortly after.
- We will continue to support the game with ongoing content updates post-launch.
- The classes, game content, features and collectibles that have been shown in Closed Alpha will all stay in the game.
