Torchlight: Infinite Review Summary

Fast-paced, satisfying gameplay and progression: The game offers fast-paced, engaging gameplay with fluid combat and satisfying progression. Players feel powerful and rewarded as they quickly level up, acquire loot, and clear maps. The game is easy to pick up and play, making it accessible to newcomers.

Generous, non-P2W free-to-play model: The game is generous as a free-to-play experience, allowing players to access most or all content without spending money. Players can earn stash tabs, characters, and other benefits through gameplay. The monetization is primarily cosmetic and doesn't create a pay-to-win environment.

Streamlined, accessible Path of Exile alternative: The game is frequently compared to Path of Exile, often seen as a more accessible and streamlined alternative. It incorporates familiar mechanics and endgame content, but with improved quality-of-life features and a lower barrier to entry. Some reviewers even prefer it over PoE or Diablo.

Deep customization, accessible build crafting: The game features deep character customization with extensive skill trees and build options. In-game build guides, loot filters, and a user-friendly crafting system help players create viable characters without relying on external resources. This allows for experimentation and diverse playstyles.

Generally enjoyable and fun: Many reviewers express general enjoyment of the game, describing it as fun, addictive, and well-made. However, these points lack specific details about gameplay mechanics or features. Therefore, the importance score is reduced.

Aggressive pay-to-win pet system: The game is heavily pay-to-win, primarily through pets (Pact Spirits) obtained via gacha mechanics. These pets provide significant advantages, including increased drop rates, damage boosts, and currency gain, creating a large imbalance between paying and free-to-play players. Some reviewers noted that the monetization tactics are predatory and aggressively pushed.

Tedious, unrewarding endgame grind: The game features a significant grind, especially in the endgame, with repetitive content and slow progression. Many reviewers felt that the game becomes tedious and unrewarding, requiring excessive time investment or real money to advance. Some also noted a steep difficulty curve and a lack of engaging content.

Awkward, mobile-style user interface: The game's user interface (UI) is poorly designed and feels like a mobile port, with clunky menus and inconvenient navigation. Reviewers found the UI confusing and not well-suited for PC play. This is compounded by the game's overall mobile-game feel, which detracts from the experience.

Unoriginal, uninspired design: The game lacks originality and feels uninspired compared to other ARPGs like Path of Exile and Diablo 4. Reviewers noted that the game borrows mechanics from other titles but fails to execute them effectively. Additionally, some reviewers felt that the game does not live up to the Torchlight series.

Buggy, unbalanced gameplay: The game suffers from various issues, including bugs, poor server performance, and unbalanced gameplay. Some reviewers encountered game-breaking issues and found the boss designs to be terrible. These problems detract from the overall experience and make the game unenjoyable.

Inspired by Path of Exile/Diablo: The game's mechanics, especially character building and skill systems, draw heavy inspiration from Path of Exile (PoE) and Diablo, offering extensive customization. However, it simplifies many aspects, making it more accessible to newcomers while retaining depth for experienced ARPG players. This includes mapping systems, skill selection, and crafting.

Extensive build customization available: The game provides extensive build customization options with diverse classes, skills, and equipment. Players can experiment with builds using in-game tools like damage testing dummies and accessible DPS information. However, the freedom can lead to meta-chasing, where players copy popular builds instead of experimenting.

Auction house and limited social features: The game features an auction house where players can trade loot for Flame Elementium (FE), a currency similar to Chaos Orbs in Path of Exile. FE becomes available at higher tiers, encouraging players to level up. Social features are limited, with most interactions occurring in the main city or through the auction house.

Mapping system is core activity: The game features a mapping system as a core activity, with seasonal mechanics integrated into it. Endgame maps can be modified with affixes to increase loot and power, allowing for significant scaling and fast-paced gameplay.

Crafting is important, but tedious: Crafting is a key component, especially at higher levels when item drops become less frequent. The crafting system is deterministic but can be tedious. Legendary items have fixed level requirements and stats, making them more suitable for alternate characters.

Generally good performance and optimization: The game generally runs well across a range of hardware, from high-end PCs to mobile devices, with smooth performance and high frame rates reported. Some players experience occasional lag, slowdowns, or crashes, especially during intense combat or on specific servers, but overall optimization is considered good. Some players reported no crashes or lag at all.

Minor initial configuration issues: The game has some minor initial configuration issues, such as launching in windowed mode with an odd resolution and defaulting to max volume. These settings need to be manually adjusted upon each launch, which can be inconvenient for players.

Fast loading times: Players report that the game has superfast loading times. This is a positive aspect of the game's performance, as it reduces waiting time and allows players to quickly jump into the action.

English localization issues: The English localization has issues, including incorrect word choices in voice acting and confusing skill descriptions. This can make it difficult for players to understand the game's story and mechanics.

Characters get stuck on corners: Characters sometimes get stuck on corners due to discrepancies between the visual rendering and actual textures. This can disrupt gameplay and be frustrating for players.

Worth trying, free-to-play: Many reviewers recommend trying Torchlight Infinite, especially since it is free-to-play. They emphasize its accessibility and fun factor, suggesting players can easily pick it up and see if it suits their tastes without any financial commitment. This makes it a low-risk option for ARPG fans or newcomers to the genre.

Good ARPG alternative: Many reviewers compare Torchlight Infinite favorably to other ARPGs, particularly Path of Exile, Diablo, and Last Epoch. Some find it a good alternative, especially for those seeking a less complex or demanding experience. Others consider it a worthy addition to the genre, especially given its free-to-play nature.

Simplified, more casual ARPG: Reviewers often describe Torchlight Infinite as a more casual or simplified version of ARPGs like Path of Exile. It's seen as easier to pick up and play, with a lower learning curve, making it suitable for players who find other games in the genre too complex or time-consuming. This accessibility is a key factor in its appeal.

Good seasonal 'filler' ARPG: Many reviewers suggest Torchlight Infinite as a temporary game to play between seasons of other ARPGs like Path of Exile or Last Epoch. It serves as a way to enjoy the genre without heavy commitment, offering a break before diving back into more complex or demanding titles. This makes it a good 'filler' game for ARPG enthusiasts.

Inconsistent, outlier opinions: Several reviews appear to be outliers, expressing sentiments that are difficult to interpret or are not representative of the broader feedback. These include ironic recommendations, hyperbolic praise, and criticisms of specific, isolated elements. Due to the lack of specific details and constructiveness, these points have a low importance score.

F2P with mobile-game monetization: The game is free-to-play with optional purchases, but some reviewers find the monetization intrusive due to frequent pop-ups and gacha mechanics. The game's UI and reward structures are reminiscent of mobile games, which is expected since it was originally designed for mobile compatibility and cross-progression.

Maxroll shutdown hurts complexity: The game's complexity is exacerbated by the shutdown of Maxroll, a popular wiki site that provided guides. This, combined with the timing of the last season coinciding with other major game releases, contributed to poor player retention.

Cartoonish, stylized art style: The game features a cartoony visual design and a simplistic steampunk-ish world design. The art style is bright and flashy, but doesn't particularly resemble Torchlight.

Copies ideas from other games: The game blatantly copies ideas from other games like Last Epoch and Path of Exile, even bordering on parody with a character being a clone. The game also has borrowings from Borderlands, including characters similar to Ellie and Claptrap.

Unhelpful in-game documentation: The game's in-game documentation and website are unhelpful, with dead ends and auto-generated one-liners that don't make sense. The 'guide' function assumes players already understand the game's systems, making it difficult for new players to learn the game.