Titan Quest II: Hands-on Preview
Way back in 2006 the original Titan Quest came along and grabbed a lot of attention for its tight, Diablo-inspired gameplay that gave players a huge amount of freedom with their skill trees and class builds. It was built on the foundations of Greek Mythology and using that base told a classic tale of man vs the gods while providing that addictive loot-and-shoot action this type of ARPG is known for. Well, it is now 2025 and we are finally getting a sequel. Thanks to THQ Nordic, I have been able to go hands-on with the opening area.
Titan Quest II is a new story, but it shares many similarities with the previous game. It is built around Greek Mythology and sports a decidedly old-school ARPG style that should make fans who feel Diablo has simplified things a little too much in recent entries very happy. The opening area even evokes the same feel as the opening area in the first game, giving a nice nostalgia hit as players re-learn the controls and systems. I was immediately thrust into classic ARPG quest territory, protecting a village from a Gryphon and its own personal cult, so I grabbed my weapon and got to clicking that mouse for all it was worth.
The action was fast and quite tough. Not too hard, but Normal difficulty here feels a couple of notches tougher than what you find in Diablo 4. The way health potions work makes this even more interesting. I got two health potion uses and those potions are refilled by causing enemy damage. It creates this flow of combat that forces players to get into the thick of things to keep healthy and is a nice twist on something more traditional like health drops. This really came to the fore with the area’s boss battle against the Gryphon. I had to manage distance, damage and health potions carefully to beat this boss, dying a few times in the process, but once I got the hang of it I quickly came to appreciate how it impacted gameplay.
As for the most important part of any game from this genre, the skill tree, well I was pretty impressed. It is obviously early on in the game so I could only unlock a few skills but there seems to be a nice amount of flexibility in these skills. For example, I unlocked a lightning bolt spell that I could modify the area of effect or make it strike multiple times. These little touches show great potential in future builds being customised perfectly to the player and I can see the hardcore community having a blast trying out each skill and all of its many modifiers (at least 9 at this early stage for each skill) trying to create the most overpowered builds they can. For those who are familiar with the genre, the system seems to slot in between Diablo’s streamlined tree and Path of Exile’s insanely daunting one.
Graphically the game isn’t setting the world on fire, but it isn’t ugly either. The spell effects were all impressive though and the game runs a great clip without any slowdown even in this early release. The graphic designers have really channelled the essence of the first game so there is a sense of continuity between the two games despite the many years in between their releases. I think this is going to scale well across a range of systems and could well be perfect for portable PCs thanks to its lower system requirements.
Being a pre-release demo, there were a couple of issues I hope the devs fix before launch. The first was that ranged weapons didn’t feel particularly accurate, with bows and staffs missing way too much to be satisfying. I also feel that perhaps two charges of the dash (before they reset with a timer) is one too few based on the flow of the combat. That said, an extra charge may be an unlock later in the game. Finally, the default keyboard mapping felt a little clunky, especially with where the potion keys were positioned so I spent a little time remapping things to my desire (something I don’t usually do).
Those are all things that are easily forgiven and will likely be addressed as the game reaches its public early access period later in the year. In all, my time with this early section of the game was quite positive and the full release has a lot of potential. I do worry if there is enough room for another big ARPG with Diablo 4 and Path of Exile 2 both sporting huge communities. But hopefully, Titan Quest II finds its crowd and carves itself a little slice of the action, especially among those who miss the old-school stylings of Diablo 2 and the original game. If you want to see for yourself if Titan Quest 2 is for you, you are in luck. The section I played is coming to Steam as a public playtest on the 16th of March so if this sounds like your thing, make sure you give it a go.
