Torchlight 2 Delayed, Now Set For July Release

Runic Games has revealed that upcoming Torchlight II has been delayed by a couple of months due to development on the Xbox Live Arcade version of the original Torchlight. Talking to media news site Digital Spy, Runic Games CEO Max Schaefer explained that the game has been pushed back from the scheduled May release to July. "I'd say that the Xbox project, having to do the extra work with the interface, has pushed us back a little bit, so we're probably talking July right now for Torchlight II," he said. He noted that work is still going strong on the sequel. "It's going great, however. We've actually got some optimisations and technical improvements that went into making the Xbox version that we've been able to go back and implement into Torchlight II for PC. "We've got load times down, we've got some animation stuff that's a little bit better, and it's feeling really good right now." The Torchlight XBLA version is set to be part of the "Xbox Live Arcade House Party" promotion starting next week. The dungeon crawler will be released on March 9 for 1200 MS Points ($15). Gamasutra talked to Schaefer about the conversion last week, who said of the release: "We can't wait to see what people think -- but at the same time, we're a little nervous. But it feels right when we play it".