Titan Quest 2 early access delayed due to 'a lot of noise' from ARPG competitors, but the developers say closed playtest results have been 'incredibly motivating'

(Image credit: Grimlore Games)

I have unfortunate news for everyone else who spent too much time reading about Greek mythology when you were a teen: We can't play Titan Quest 2 as soon as we'd hoped. In a Steam news post today, developer Grimlore Games announced that the Ancient Greek Diablo-like's early access launch is being pushed back to summer.

Considering it was originally announced as a Winter 2024/2025 release, we probably shouldn't be surprised, because, you know. That was a season ago. The reason, Grimlore Games said, is that it was "closely monitoring the market and realized there was a lot of noise with regards to ARPG in our targeted release window."

A Titan Quest 2 player leaps at a giant enemy crab with an axe. — (Image credit: THQ Nordic)

If anything, that's an understatement. In the last six months, Path of Exile 2 hit its own early access launch, embarking on a rollercoaster of difficulty discourse and disastrous patch rollouts. Diablo 4, meanwhile, is causing upsets with ever more expensive cosmetic bundles. And while those two heavy hitters stir up turmoil, Last Epoch has emerged as a Diablo-like dark horse for discontented loot goblins.

So, yeah. Things are a bit loud in ARPGs at the moment. Probably better for Titan Quest 2 to wait for the volume to die down. But despite the delay, Grimlore said it's gotten "incredibly motivating" data from its closed demo playtest in March, which contained the game's introduction chapter, Mastery selection (subclasses, basically), and a boss fight with what looks like some kind of giant, horrible griffin.

In a refreshing case of game development transparency, the studio shared some of the numbers from its playtest survey, and the responses from early testers sounds promising. 92% of surveyed players reported a "very positive experience," which includes the 66% of players who described themselves as recent Titan Quest players or TQ1 experts. Good sign if the diehards are pleased.

A Titan Quest 2 player deflects an attacking sorcerer's lightning spell with a hoplite shield. — (Image credit: THQ Nordic)

Grimlore said results were similarly positive for the game's atmosphere, quests, and combat design, with players reporting—on a scale of 1 to 6—an average difficulty rating of 3.6.

"This is a good place to be—challenging but not unfair," Grimlore said. "We want to strike a balance between engaging combat and an experience relaxing enough to enjoy after a long day." Given my own appreciation for casually blowing up screens of skeletons, that's reassuring to hear.

The studio did acknowledge areas that players identified as needing some improvement, however—namely that some described the combat as feeling a little low tempo. Grimlore said its goal is to make combat feel "tactical and meaningful, but it should never feel sluggish," and that it's "looking into improvements." Work's also been done to alleviate struggles that some players had with aiming abilities during fights.

We don't know when exactly to expect Titan Quest 2's early access launch this summer, but the developers said they "hope to be able to announce a fixed date very soon."

Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

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