Torchlight: Infinite Closed Beta Impressions – Hello Ember Tech My Old Friend

Torchlight: Infinite admittedly flew under my radar initially, as I hadn’t been keeping up with the series as a whole. Still, I absolutely loved Torchlight II, so when offered the chance to try out the game ahead of the official closed beta, I had to take it. As usual, the assets are subject to change and any issues you encounter in the test proper you should report to the devs as needed.

OPTIONS

The all-important graphics settings include:

• FPS: 30 / 45 / 60
• Render: OpenGL / Vulcan Beta
• Basic settings: Battery Saver / Smooth / Exquisite / Ultimate
• Mapping: Low / High
• Texture: Low / Medium / High
• Effect quality: Low / Medium / High
• Shadow quality: Low / Medium / High / Ultra
• Anti-aliasing: Off / Low / High

Voices and text are available in either English or Simplified Chinese. The rest are relatively standard / barebones.

PRESENTATION

Playing on the Poco X3 NFC, I wasn’t sure if I could crank up the graphics, but surprisingly, it ran perfectly well (minus the whole ping which is a separate issue).

The four characters available in the build have their own intro animation showing off their skills. Unlike Torchlight II / III, they are their own character, and are thus gender-locked ‘classes’. Possibly disappointing for some, but it doesn’t have to be, as I’ll elaborate further. Presently, we have the Spacetime Witness, Divineshot, Berserker and Frostfire, in the series’ familiar artstyle. I do think it looks sufficiently bright, colourful, with somber shades as needed.

Characters have voicelines, and presumably the NPCs might have them as well without everything fully implemented yet. There will be cutscene moments, with any suitably bombastic effects. I think there will be occasions where skill area of effects and elementally infused enemies’ colours / effects should be tuned for better visibility, interactable markers and the like, but otherwise I’m not complaining about the overall aesthetic.

GAMEPLAY

Before we go in, there IS an AFK timer. A bug caused the game to register me as idle while I was menuing, which should hopefully be properly addressed. The dev team is aware, so please be patient if you encounter it in the closed beta.

As mentioned, you can make your choice among the Spacetime Witness, Divineshot, Berserker and Frostfire. I chose to go with the Frostfire to start for some dual element spell flinging fun. The basic controls should be familiar to regular mobile players: virtual joystick on the left, skill buttons on your right, with the middle circle being your regular auto skill and the remaining four your other active skills.

The Frostfire’s main gimmick is releasing a burst of ice or flame depending on the primary element skill that you cast. As far as I can tell, you will only get loot drops for your specific character, but I can choose to throw on a crossbow if an alt has obtained one. Speaking of alts, the character creation slots seem unlimited at the moment.

There’s no auto-travel which is common in mobile titles, so start following the quest marker. The map will gradually reveal itself as you travel, with destructible items, off shoot areas, extra lore pieces and monsters that will jump in when you run past. There’s some convenience in that you can pick up any dropped equipment from a distance as long as they show up on the upper right, so you don’t have to always run back and forth to collect loot. Tiers go from common whites, rarer blues, epic purples and legendary oranges. Further upgrades are also possible, though I didn’t look too hard into it.

Talents have both major and minor talents, with major ones unlocking at 10 and 20. You can choose from 3, that you can swap at any time. Resetting the points are free until level 70. Later on, you can also “specialize” into certain archetypes, though only one for each character is currently accessible out of a base three.

Skills are where the whole “customizing” thing really kicks in, I’d say. You basically can augment a skill with different effects, like how I can attach a spread shot to my basic fireball. That thing about ‘gender locking’? If you prefer the skills of another character but like the design of someone else, you are able to later on purchase those skills and use them on a character you’ve raised thus far while having your ‘main’s’ specialized archetype. There are also passives that you can likewise tweak, utilizing a set amount of ‘energy’, separate from your mana. Skills themselves level up automatically as long as you have them actively equipped.

The story maps are persistent as far as I can tell, so it’s the loot that’s different. No big shakes there. Get loot, defeat bosses, progress, story, you is winner. There’s a seasonal battle pass with the regular free and paid tracks as well, and achievement milestones for more rewards.

There’s an in-game trading house, which I will assume will be much more important when more actually get round to using it. There’s a world chat but at this stage, I can’t gauge how player to player interaction really works.

GACHA

“There’s gacha?” I hear you ask. It is a free to play title, and they’ve got to monetize something. That something are the “pactspirits”, what I’d say are essentially the pets. They come with their respective rarities at a whopping 2% base chance to obtain one Legendary, AND have their associated talent trees to give you buffs. You can also gacha for various cosmetic effects, some of which are purchasable direct from the store.

To clarify, you have your base talent trees, and equipping a Pactspirit will allow you to swap nodes into the bonuses it offers instead of the original upgrade. Duplicates improve a Pactspirit to boost the effectiveness of the rings of talent nodes, and some incremental buffs. You’ll need to draw a Pactspirit 6 times total to max it out.

Since the whole payment thing isn’t fixed in the closed beta build, we’ll have to see how much that changes.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

I quite enjoyed my time with Torchlight: Infinite. I can log in, get some story progression done, and see how far I am to the end game modes that I could rope my friends in to try too. I want to relive the days of my Torchlight II minion engineer, tossing out all the mines and blasting away with my cannon, on the go.

Once I get my ping issues sorted out.

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