Echtra Games announced the 3rd closed alpha test for Torchlight Frontiers; it will begin on March 5th and the NDA will be lifted which means those who are invited, will be able to freely discuss things, stream it, make VOD’s, etc.
More information: https://www.torchlightfrontiers.com/en/news-article/11087043
Given that Blizzard really dropped the ball with Diablo “4”‘s schedule (plus I really have little confidence the team they assembled for its design, will come any closer to hitting the ARPG mark), Torchlight Frontiers is pretty much the only upcoming MMO-ARPG (i.e. isometric quarter view fixed camera) title that I am looking forward to investing any time in once it releases.
As noted before, Lost Ark (KR) has dropped off a cliff for me with its item level/time gated/most everything limited end game design (and I don’t really expect them to deviate that much design wise for whenever they decide to announce the NA/EU version of it). I’m also no longer that much into fixed camera isometric type games either (I blame ArcheAge and TERA’s open world for this).
With just a couple of weeks until the first year anniversary of Devilian’s closure hits, nothing has come close to even scratching that itch (even with the quirks it had, I truly miss its combat) during this past year (Warlords Awakening/ELOA’s world design was just shallow while the loot system just didn’t feel rewarding or satisfying; the combat was fun but that was about it). And with radio silence for Project TL (formerly Lineage Eternal), my feeling is that the current team handling it, are running into the same design conundrum that prior teams had for this title (where I am doubting this thing will ever see the light of day). Plus everytime I log back into Blade & Soul, everything that I dislike about NCSoft comes to the forefront where I find myself logging out pretty quickly (it also doesn’t help that their UE3 optimization for it is even far worse then Bluehole’s “optimization” for TERA, A:IR and the UE4 based PUBG).
With so much ARPG brain trust that is working at Echtra Games, I feel this will be the title that will at least do the ARPG side of the “MMO-ARPG” tag, a lot more justice.
