Torchlight Frontiers Turns into Torchlight 3, Drops F2P

Torchlight 3 is confirmed? What about the announced Torchlight Frontiers?

In a surprising but heartening piece of Torchlight news, Max Schaefer and the folks over at Echtra Games have decided to toss the Frontiers free-to-play model in the bin and instead bring the title to full glory as buy-to-play Torchlight 3.

Based on feedback from Frontiers alpha testers, Echstra Games decided to move the game to a more typical payment model in the ARPG genre — and most fans of the series have little to complain about with the game moving to a more focused business model.

In the video above, Schaefer states they found Torchlight Frontiers was meant to be “a true successor to Torchlight 1 and 2“, and the decision to change it to the actual third game in the series came after alpha tester feedback and the fact the game was growing into something suited to be an actual sequel, rather than a spin-off.

Along with this news comes the revelation that Torchlight 3 will be making its way to Steam, a welcome announcement for fans of the first two games who likely played them on the platform. It will also be releasing this year.

Torchlight Frontiers was meant to be a persistent game world shared by its players. Considering the phrasing of “buy to play,” it seems likely Torchlight 3 will retain that vision.

Stay tuned to GameSkinny for more on Torchlight 3 as it breaks.