At the end of the first of three acts in Torchlight III, there’s a boss character who repeats two of the same barks over and over. One is “This should be fun.” The other is “Let’s make it interesting.” I couldn’t help but hear both as the ignored voice of a quiet developer at the back of a Torchlight III planning meeting.
Torchlight III feels an awful lot like what it is: a free-to-play multiplayer game that thought better of itself, and decided to become a proper full-price microtransaction-free primarily solo release. If I didn’t already know the path it had taken, I’d have spent my entire time playing the game being gnawed at by wondering just what it was that made it all feel so off.