Torchlight II Announced For 2011
Runic Games has announced a sequel to the popular action RPG Torchlight, planned for release in Spring 2011. One notable improvement from the first game is Torchlight II's inclusion of online co-op play, with LAN support and a matchmaking system. "The sequel will feature an updated version of the Torchlight editor, randomized overworld areas complete with weather effects, random dungeons, a selection of pets, fishing, limitless loot, and a retirement system which will allow users to retire an older character and bestow some benefits of it to a newly created character." An MMO set in the Torchlight world is still in development.
Torchlight was built using Ogre3D, an open source graphics rendering engine. I hope that the sequel uses it too.
Ogre3D is written in C++ and is compatible with PC, Linux, Mac, iPhone, Android and other platforms. If you're into programming 3D games or simulations, you should definitely check it out. www.ogre3d.org
(I'm a long time user of Ogre3D but otherwise unaffiliated)
Runic is comprised primarily of developers previously from Flagship Studios (Hellgate London) previously from Blizzard North (Diablo 1 & 2). So they're not exactly 'newcomers', despite the age of the studio itself.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/10/08/05/0422232/Torchlight-II-Announced-For-2011#
There's a good reason for that. Travis Baldree, the lead developer of Torchlight, also designed Fate.