Torchlight II not “currently” planned for console launch

After more delays than you could shake a disgruntled Diablo III buyer at, Torchlight II will finally be dungeon crawling onto PCs tomorrow; but what about consoles? For the moment, that’s not something that’s definitely going to happen, although Runic Games hasn’t abandoned the idea entirely.

Although the sequel was originally intended for launch on PC and Xbox, the four-times-bigger-than-the-first-one game’s file size exceeded the 2 GB restriction for the Xbox LIVE Arcade.

“We’re not currently planning a console release. We haven’t ruled it out but to do a port like we did last time, would probably not be on the cards, because of the limitations of Xbox Live Arcade, and the fact that we would have to down-sample all our artwork this time,” Runic Games boss Max Schaefer told IGN.

“With Torchlight we were able to do a direct port of pretty much all of the art assets, other than the interface that had to be redesigned. It would be a lot more work this time. It’s questionable whether a business case can be made for that.

“We enjoyed making Torchlight for Xbox Live, and we think it came out really good. It didn’t lose any money, certainly, it made money. But we can only do one thing at a time as a studio. We have to evaluate everything across the board and say, ‘What makes sense for us to do next?’”

Well, obviously he should fire the entire art department for being so recklessly extravagant. Or redo the whole game with 8-bit pixel art. Hey, I’d play that.