Torchlight is free on the Epic Games Store, Limbo will be next

(Image credit: Runic)

There have been plenty of contenders for Diablo's throne as king of the action-RPG, but Torchlight is a favorite of mine. Made by Runic Games, headed up by a bunch of ex-Diablo developers, it's a cheerful singleplayer throwback with some of the best pets in videogames. Torchlight had dogs and cats that would not only carry your excess gear, but travel back to town and sell it to save you the trip. The image of my dog returning to the shop with a mouth full of monster swords, head tilted to one side, was a delight. 

And so was the ability to feed him fish that transform him into various combat-ready shapes, including a giant spider.

Torchlight is free on the Epic Games Store right now, and will be until July 18. Their next free indie giveaway after that will be Limbo, Playdead's 2010 platformer from the era when it seemed like every second indie game was about a sad child traveling from the left of the screen to the right.

If you'd like to reminisce about the making of Torchlight, we've got a feature about that you can read over here.

Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.