Torchlight Frontiers is now Torchlight 3, will release on Steam

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It will follow a similar act and progression structure as the previous Torchlight games, and you'll be able to play offline.

It's been a bit of a rocky road for the upcoming Torchlight game—developer Runic Games, maker of Torchlight and Torchlight 2, was closed 2017, and Torchlight Frontiers, the shared-world RPG being made at Echtra Games, was delayed from a 2019 release to 2020.

It's about time for some good news, then. Torchlight Frontiers is now Torchlight 3, and it's not just a simple change in title.

"Along with this name change comes a major shift in our design approach to Torchlight III," reads a post on the Torchlight site. "Torchlight III will be released as a premium title. For one box-price, you will own the game and be able to play the way that you want, online or off."

"Over the past year, we have gathered massive amounts of feedback from our Alpha testers," the post continues. "After reviewing this feedback, discussing with our internal teams, and receiving guidance from our publisher, we determined that this was the best course for the game. This shift helps bring Torchlight back to its roots and makes it the true sequel to Torchlight I & II that it was always meant to be."

Torchlight 3 will now follow a similar Act and progression structure to Torchlight and Torchlight 2. You'll be able to play both online and offline, and the "in-game real-money store" has been removed. It will launch on Steam as the first two Torchlight games did.

(Weirdly enough, I started a new character in Torchlight 2 just yesterday—I've just started playing another action RPG recently, Grim Dawn, but found the art style and atmosphere a bit too, well, grim for my tastes. I like my hack-and-slash RPGs a bit more cartoony.)

Despite these substantial changes for Torchlight 3, a 2020 release date is still planned. You can read the full announcement here.

Keep up with all of 2020's upcoming releases on our list of games of 2020.

Christopher Livingston
Christopher Livingston
Senior Editor

Chris started playing PC games in the 1980s, started writing about them in the early 2000s, and (finally) started getting paid to write about them in the late 2000s. Following a few years as a regular freelancer, PC Gamer hired him in 2014, probably so he'd stop emailing them asking for more work. Chris has a love-hate relationship with survival games and an unhealthy fascination with the inner lives of NPCs. He's also a fan of offbeat simulation games, mods, and ignoring storylines in RPGs so he can make up his own.