As with the original, the difficulty level skews a little on the easier side when playing on the normal difficulty level, but thankfully you’re free to choose how hard you want the game to be when you create your character. For me, Veteran difficulty felt like the right balance of challenge and progression, but your mileage may vary. I’m just happy I don’t have to beat the game several times over to get to the difficulty that feels right. (That’s a zing to you, Diablo!)
Torchlight, though wonderful, sorely lacked co-op, and Runic was taken to task by just about everybody for it. Luckily for us, they happened to agree with the criticism and decided to right that wrong by including co-op for up to 6 players in Torchlight 2.
Playing co-op is a snap, and it’s a good thing, because you’re going to want to bring friends. For online play, a server browser lets you choose a session to join, see where your friends are playing, or create your own game. When creating a game, you can set limits to the number of players and restrict the level range of player who join so you don’t get a high level character dropping in to ruin everyone else’s fun.
When playing in co-op, the difficulty of monsters in the world increases based on the number of players. Loot drops are your own, though you’re certainly welcome to trade gear with your partners as you see fit. If you drop into a game that’s in progress, players can use the waypoint system to teleport to their friends and get going. The net code is stable, and handles players coming and going well.
Playing Torchlight 2 with friends is just a blast. The fast and fluid nature of the combat translates perfectly to a multiplayer setting, and it’s vastly entertaining for six players to unleash their arsenals all at once to take down hordes of baddies. The ensuing chaos is a spectacular light show, and the showers of loot are incredibly satisfying. Someone can always use what you can’t, and the large number of class-restricted unique items will do more than clog up your stash when you have other players around.
Torchlight 2 isn’t just a great game, it realizes the full potential of its predecessor. It’s got heart. Moxie. It’s the scrappy underdog that everyone wants to love, and it just so happens to be the best Action RPG I’ve played in years. There are a lot of great co-op titles releasing this fall, but do yourself a favor and don’t miss out on Torchlight 2.
Verdict
Editor's Choice!
Co-Op Score
Overall
The Co-Op Experience: Play 6 player co-op across 4 classes. Each player gets their own loot and monsters scale difficulty based on the number of players.
Co-Optimus game reviews focus on the cooperative experience of a game, our final score graphic represents this experience along with an average score for the game overall. For an explanation of our scores please check our Review Score Explanation Guide.