Torchlight: Infinite (2023)

Lore & Background

In the Torchlight universe, the city of Torchlight sits at the edge of a vast, lightless expanse called the Underdark. Generations of miners, mages, and mercenaries have carved tunnels into the dark, luring creatures that feed on shadow and silence. The original witch of Torchlight—brash, half-baked, and wielding a staff she barely understood—proved that a single spark of raw magic could turn the tide against the Mourners and the Goblin King.

Torchlight: Infinite continues in this same world, where the Underdark's depths have grown and new factions have risen in the power vacuum. The lore emphasizes the eternal struggle between those who hoard light and those who feed on its absence. Witches, Rangers, and Warriors each carry their own histories tied to the city's founding, the old mines, and the strange alchemical experiments that gave the region its name.

The tone remains deliberately lighter than grimdark competitors: goblins are bumbling rather than purely evil, the Mourners are tragic rather than hateful, and the world's magic feels more like a chaotic workshop than a sacred order. This tonal choice, inherited from Runic Games' original vision, remains a defining thread in Infinite's narrative framing.

In Their Own Story

The lantern sputters. You've been in the Underdark for six hours, or maybe nine—time stretches when the only light is the one you carry. A Mourners' wail echoes from somewhere below, that low, resonant hum that vibrates in your molars. You check your gear: the staff glows a tired amber, the boots are caked in phosphorescent dust, and your satchel is heavy with loot you'll never get around to comparing.

You descend another ledge. The stone here is older, veined with something that pulses faintly blue, like a vein under skin. A goblin peeks from behind a stalactite, not attacking—just watching, tilting its head like a dog hearing a distant bark. You toss it a scrap of bread from your pack. It sniffs it, decides it's acceptable, and scurries off into the dark.

Somewhere ahead, the Mourners are waiting. You light the lantern higher, feel the warmth against your cheeks, and keep walking. The Underdark is patient. It has always been patient.

Reader's Guide

The Torchlight story begins in 2009 with a small New York studio called Runic Games. Their debut, Torchlight, was a burst of color in a genre dominated by grey and gore. A young witch with a crooked staff, goblins who were more comic relief than threat, and a loot loop that felt genuinely joyful—it sold millions and carved out a space between Diablo's darkness and something warmer. Torchlight II in 2012 doubled down on co-op and expanded the world, but the franchise's future was already uncertain.

Runic Games eventually closed its doors, and the Torchlight IP passed into new hands. XD Inc. stepped in as publisher and set up Echelon Team to build the next chapter. The result, Torchlight: Infinite, launched in 2023 as a free-to-play title on PC. For longtime fans, the shift from a $40 premium game to a live-service model was jarring. The gacha-adjacent gear system, the seasonal structure, the constant nudges toward microtransactions—these were foreign to a series that had always felt like a self-contained adventure.

And yet the bones are still there. The Underdark still feels like a place you want to wander. The loot still glows. The goblins still bumble. Infinite is a compromise: the soul of Runic's original vision filtered through a modern service framework. Whether that compromise satisfies depends on whether you remember the witch, or the business model. For many fans, the lantern still burns, even if the flame is a different shape now.

Did You Know?

• The original Torchlight (2009) was developed by Runic Games, a small independent studio, and positioned itself as a lighter, more colorful alternative to Diablo in the ARPG space.
• Torchlight: Infinite shifted the franchise from a premium, single-purchase model to a free-to-play live-service structure, a significant philosophical change for a series built around self-contained adventures.
• The Torchlight universe's central setting, the Underdark, is a vast subterranean region where creatures feed on the absence of light, giving the city of Torchlight its name and purpose.
• The franchise's signature tone—goblins as bumbling nuisances, magic as chaotic and workshop-like rather than sacred—was a deliberate creative choice by Runic Games to differentiate from the grimdark ARPG norm.