In our first preview for the long-awaited action RPG sequel, Titan Quest II has the makings of a really good game, but it won’t get there without a major redesign.
Developed by a German studio Grimlore Games, a THQ-found company comprised of key members from a now-defunct indie studio Coreplay. Coreplay was responsible for some shovelware on Nintendo Wii and PC as well as Jagged Alliance: Back in Action and Jagged Alliance: Crossfire.
As Grimlore Games they’ve only developed one project: Spellforce 3 and its 2 accompanying DLCs. It is difficult to gauge how much of old Coreplay staff is on the new team, but Spellforce 3 was a successful title.
The game is still in Early Access, so there is still hope for it to shape up in order to compete with the other big boy ARPGs like Diablo IV, Path of Exile II and Last Epoch I. That is no small feat and Titan Quest II has its fair share of drawbacks to address before even entering that race proper.
Let us get something out of the way first: this game is absolutely gorgeous. Opulent. Picturesque. A feast for the eyes even on the lowest graphical settings. The world really feels like a Mediterranean paradise overrun by the mythological miscreants.
And even the mystical ne’er-do-wells got their fair share of 3D sculpting attention. It feels like a waste to play this game from such a faraway angle. It is difficult to appreciate just how carefully ugly some of the creatures are unless one looks them in the face.
This is about where praises for this game end. What the Early Access portion of the game offers in terms of story was surmisable from the reveal trailer.
Nemesis, the goddess of retribution, is “retributing” all over Greece and even the Fates aren’t happy about it. Your character is “the chosen one” foretold to kill Nemesis, so she’s out to get you before you do. Fates, self-fulfilling prophecies, Mediterranean climate… it’s all very Greek.
However, the story beats and character dialogues are stiff and uninspired, it’s all written in a very simple language. Nothing is elevated or as epic as the setting portends to be.
Akin to a stiff Dungeons & Dragons session, the setting may be fantastical and voice-acting is quite good, but it’s all brought down by bland direction, teetering on Marvel-slop writing.
Your “not-Navi” spiritual support animal, Areion the swift-hoofed steed, is awkwardly bringing players up to speed with the godly Greek drama. Some of the lines this carrot-muncher spouts couldn’t be made to work even by industry veterans. This is a direction issue, not a voice-talent issue.
This is a mythical tale and I’m willing to believe I’m talking to a fish god, but this feels like hack writing. Also, there are only a couple of voiced male characters who don’t come off as either wimpy victims or befuddled buffoons (like Areion, for example).
The most prominent Achilles’ heel is the skill system. Even if we forget how long it takes to go from point A to point B on the map or how dodgy some invisible walls can be, the skills are just plain boring.
Only 4 masteries are available at the moment, with “at least 6” promised (compared to the first Titan Quest’s 11). Mixing and matching masteries was the bread and butter of Titan Quest, this system paved the way for original developers to follow it up with a very successful spiritual successor Grim Dawn back in 2016.
And while you’re still able to do that here, it’s a chore to get any kind of damage going. Our first character was a crit-oriented rogue. Bad choice for an early game. So we quickly (and cheaply) re-specced our character into poison damage. Auras, damage over time effects, resistance shredding – the works.
That didn’t work for too long. So we respecced again. Finally we hit a brick wall of regular mobs in the last portions of Early Access content and could not progress regardless of skill re-distribution.
So we rolled a new character and went with the ol’ reliable: a spin-to-win whirlwind build. By speccing exclusively into damage and health leech we breezed through the game in just under 3 hours (as opposed to fiddling with poison debuffs for 5 hours. Very boring, very anti-climactic.
The game may be in Early Access with unfinished assets, stretched textures, glitchy invisible walls, dodgy aiming, unfinished animations, inconsistent UI choices, inability to target an enemy if it’s standing on top of an item, etc… But unless the skill system gets a significant overhaul, the growing pains of bug fixes won’t be enough to compete in the big leagues by full release.
Releasing a game as widely known as Titan Quest in the current state makes me wonder if they’re desperately behind budget, or are also going to phone it in on release. First impressions are always hard to correct.
All the marvelous map details, interesting side-quests and art assets will go to waste and be forgotten within a couple of months after release. Like that cute girl from high-school you meet years later and realize she hasn’t grown as a person. All looks, no substance. An absolute chore to interact with.
The original Titan Quest was decent at best, so Titan Quest II may be a faithful sequel in terms of banality.
Titan Quest II is now available for Windows PC (via Steam) in early access after a brief delay. When the game hits full release, it’ll be on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5.
