If it walks like Diablo, feels like Diablo, plays like Diablo, and even was built by some of the team from Diablo then it must be……Torchlight!

The Steam fantasy RPG that took the world by storm with an 80% average review and half a million sales under its belt is under three months is getting a sequel.

Available on Steam in Spring of 2011 Torchlight II will be another adventure where gamers will embark upon Diablo-esque point-and-hit adventures through randomly generated dungeons to secure rare items. In addition to an original storyline, Runic said that Torchlight II will include new character classes, quests, monsters, and dungeons, as well as “an expansive overworld.”

Perhaps the most welcome change for fans of the original is the addition of co-op multiplayer. Torchlight II will include a free matchmaking service for peer-to-peer multiplayer, and gamers can also join up with their friends online.

Torchlight was a huge success when it was released.  The game, available by digital download through Steam, was the Diablo game we have been waiting for since Diablo 2.  In the long months before the release of the highly anticipated Diablo 3, Torchlight took the internet and all of its tubes by storm giving the players what they love, and missed, the most…Diablo.

In the fantasy world that serves as the setting of Torchlight, Ember is a mysterious ore which has the power to imbue people and items with magical power. The mining boomtown called Torchlight is built above a rich vein of Ember, and adventurers are drawn there seeking the magical substance and the enchanted items it creates. However, as the player character explores the dungeons below Torchlight, they discover that Ember has a corrupting influence which led to the fall of past civilizations and endangers those who use it in the present.

The player character arrives in town and is recruited by Syl, a sage who is searching for her mentor, an alchemist named Master Alric who has disappeared in the nearby mine. At the bottom of the mine tunnels, the player finds a passage into older, crypt-like chambers below, eventually discovering that the entire dungeon is a “layer cake of ruined civilizations.”  Alric ambushes the player and reveals he has become evil due to the corrupting influence of Ember. After fighting a series of monsters and henchmen, the player reaches the bottom of the dungeon and must face Alric and an ancient creature named Ordrak who is the source of the Ember’s corruption.