Man, I got so excited when the headline, “Torchlight Coming to Handheld Devices Later This Year,” appeared in my inbox this afternoon. Before clicking to read the full announcement, my mind immediately jumped to, “Please be Torchlight on PlayStation Vita. Pretty, pretty please!”
Alas, that is not the case. Runic’s action RPG is actually coming to mobile devices–as in Android and iOS–which is certainly great news. However, my hopes wouldn’t have been dashed if the headline had said “coming to mobile devices,” because in the gaming world handheld and mobile generally refer to two different markets. To me, handheld gaming has always meant GBA, DS, 3DS, PSP, Vita, etc, and mobile has meant phones and tablets.
But let’s get back on point here…
Torchlight Mobile is not a port or rehash of the home computer games either, and it’s not even made by Runic. Perfect World and developer Fedeen Games are making an entirely new Torchlight chase-and-chop fantasy dungeon crawl built just for smartphones and tablets, including online multiplayer.
The release date has vaguely been announced for sometime in 2015. Vague summarizes the announcement in general, as no other details have been revealed at this time, nor have any screenshots or videos been made available–just a logo and some artwork. You’ll have to wait until E3 next week to see more from Torchlight Mobile when Perfect World plans to show an early alpha build of the game to press.