Torchlight Frontiers trailer shows steampunk mechs, exploding goblins and a tiny train
Here be Gerblins.
Announced two weeks ago, we're finally getting our first peek at how co-op action RPG Torchlight Frontiers looks in motion. While there's still some big talk about the game being a "shared world" that new developers Echtra Games have yet to explain, the new trailer looks enough like Torchlight 2 to me, which is all I'm looking for in a sequel like this. Take a peek at its new classes and environments in the trailer below, although sadly accompanied by music that sounds more Danny Elfman than Diablo 2.
While the trailer below features some interesting new elements, such as a playable quadrupedal robot, most of Torchlight's defining features seem to be present and correct. The art style is as chunky and cartoony as ever, and the pet system is alive and well, letting players pick an adorably fluffy looking alpaca to handle their heavy loot lifting. Monsters come in pleasingly big swarms, and still explode into a cloud of chunky, clean-cut slabs of meat after being explosively dealt with. Echtra also confirm that the environments are procedurally generated once more.
While I could be wrong and the model could turn out to be be entirely cosmetic, the robot character's built-in arsenal of weapons suggests that character classes may be more distinct from each other than in the previous game, at the cost of being more directly tied to character model. There's also a few shots of a turret-equipped little train, riding along tracks that the players are putting down in the middle of combat - whether this is a class ability, a mission objective or something else is unknown, but it's definitely something fresh.
Right now we've no idea when Torchlight Frontiers will be making its first dungeon-delve beyond "2019", but you can sign up for beta testing as and when it happens on its official site here. We also don't know yet whether Torchlight Frontiers will be free-to-play (as publisher Perfect World Entertainment are known for), or a more traditional retail game. What we do know is that goblins explode real good.