Last year, Perfect World Entertainment shut down Runic Games. Even before that, fans had been told that any sort of Torchlight MMO would be a long time coming. And yet the previous event was not the end of the story, because it turns out that a Torchlight sequel is happening. More than that, Torchlight Frontiers is promising something far closer to an MMO than anyone might have dared to dream, offering a dynamically generated and shared persistent world for players to take on with friends and pets.

Pets in-game, that is. You do not need to teach your cat how to loot.

Max Schaefer, former head of Runic Games and co-founder of Blizzard North, is heading the team for Torchlight Frontiers, so there’s reason for fans to believe that the game will in fact feel very much like… well, Torchlight. Even more so than the mobile version, perhaps. So if it seemed like any sort of MMO version of the title was never actually going to happen, it looks as if, well… it’s happening. It’s going to be here soon. And yes, it’s a wonderful surprise.