Torchlight II Opening Cinematic Revealed

By Michael Shelton / April 22, 2012

Runic Games recently collaborated with Klei Entertainment and created the opening cinematic of Torchlight II titled, "New Heroes Will Rise". Revealing the opening cinematic gives gamers a way to help bridge the gap between the ending of the original Torchlight, and the upcoming sequel. Torchlight never really had much of a story, at all. With Torchlight II the developers decided that they wanted to give players more reason and motivation for venturing through dungeons and gathering loot. Let's be honest, loot driven games usually fail to have an impressive story. Art director, Jason Beck, revealed two of the motivations for including cinematics in their latest Torchlight dungeon romp. Here is the first of the team's main motivations.

"One, we simply had the time and budget for it this time around... things that were in short supply for the first game."

Improving upon the aspects that were lacking in the first game is sure to please fans of the original. Perhaps one of the most intriguing aspects Beck reveals is that of how the team collaborates and works together. This is revealed to have a direct impact on how Torchlight II, and the universe itself, is shaped and created.

"Two, we were very aware that the story was an area where we could improve upon Torchlight greatly in a sequel. Like I said, we didn't have a whole lot of time to invest into properly setting up, fleshing out, and delivering a particularly engaging story for the first Torchlight. We had a lot of our backstory and key points mapped out "in our heads" (we have a collective hive mind), and we tried to hint at greater things where we could, but it wasn't necessarily translating into a narrative. We wanted to make sure we addressed that forTorchlight II."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_kW6XIlHOGo If you have a growing curiosity over what inspired them to collaborate with Klei Entertainment, you can head over to their official blog post of the reveal. One of the coolest parts of the post, besides the trailer, is that they included an image with original storyboard art. Be sure you check it out.