Torchlight Preview

Thunderbolt has slapped up a brief preview of Torchlight, after seeing Runic Games’ action RPG firsthand on the show floor of the Penny Arcade Expo.

It would make sense then that the visuals are fairly restrained in order to make the game playable on the widest possible variety of PCs. Torchlight’s appeal, however, is based on a number of other factors. For starters, there’s the sensible $20 price point and Runic’s promise of an additional free-to-play MMO slated for a stand-alone release about a year out from that of Torchlight. Then there’s the fact that the game’s shipping with a full mod kit right off the bat – handing fans the very tools the developers used to create the game.

Much of the gameplay feels derivative of other games. Whether it’s the pet dog which follows your custom character around and helps in the completion of missions or the point-and-click nature of the game, it all seems to have been done elsewhere – and better at that. Nonetheless, there’s no denying the game’s charm which really does shine through in its sheer simplicity.