Retrospective: Titan Quest

Battling the gods.

In the genre known colloquially as Diablo Clones, Titan Quest holds a special place for me, although oddly not so much for the game that was released, but more for what happened behind the scenes. Something that suggests we're trying to be God. So, since it's Sunday, why don't we see if we can find a berserk route to a teleological interpretation of videogames, via remembering a visit to Iron Lore during the game's development?

This is not to say I haven't enjoyed spending every spare second of the last week hacking and slashing my way through ancient history, collecting ludicrous amounts of loot, slaughtering thousands of creatures whose only crime was being on my path.

What a developer needs to get right in this seemingly simple style of game is subtle, and for the most part Titan Quest understands the nuance. It's about the comforting routine of repetition, an endless sense of progression without barriers. You hack through the field to the cave to the bridge to the next town. Sell your loot, exchange completed quests for fresh, and repeat.

'Retrospective: Titan Quest' Screenshot 1

One down, nine hundred million to go.

In fact, if anything the format gets more simplified with each generation. Titan Quest, at four years old, has no easy way for getting rid of a full inventory mid-quest. Last year's Torchlight lets your pet go do that. In Titan Quest you have to go to all the effort of laying down a portal stone and teleporting back to the previous town. What am I? Their slave?

The process is so simple that it's soothing. I alternate between my left and right click attacks, occasionally firing off another special skill from the number keys, and I ceaselessly win. I level up, I find a better helmet or club, I gather gold and potions, I defeat armies. Should I die it's likely because I ran out of health drinks mid-battle rather than because the odds were insurmountable. It's so calm, so soothing, that I find I'm able to multitask around it. Put a TV programme on the other monitor and both can be enjoyed simultaneously.

The Sullivans

Five years ago, a year before Titan Quest was released, I went to Boston to visit developers Iron Lore. The game was still very much in little pieces, scattered around the office, being meticulously stitched together by a fantastic team. Boss Brian Sullivan had created his studio by handpicking developers and designers he found interesting, a combination of old hands and - interestingly - a selection of young former Nintendo game developers.

Amongst the veterans was artist and animator Rich Sullivan (no relation), formerly of Looking Glass, who had a corner of the office unlike any other I've seen, combining technologies covering tens of thousands of years of techniques from state-of-the-art tablets to the crude tools of sculpture. Having spent some time working in animation he told me that he'd been forced to learn the more modern methods, but would always insist on beginning his character design in clay. Extraordinary sculptures surrounded him, from pristine Roman helmets to grotesque, distorted, monstrous faces.

'Retrospective: Titan Quest' Screenshot 2

Normally you're zoomed out so far you can't even appreciate how pretty the grass is.

I commented on the small, stop-motion-style figurines stood about his monitor, and asked if Ray Harryhausen was a big influence. He looked at me with both tired joy and relief, opining that these young people he was working with had never even heard of Harryhausen, let alone seen his films. He would, during lunch breaks, force them to sit and watch Jason And The Argonauts or The 7th Voyage of Sinbad. Educate them.

There was passion in this team.

Playing God

One of those passions was to be developing a community. And central to this was the level editor.

I'm not a modder, and I don't have any significant experience with level editors, so forgive my ignorance on the matter. But watching a Titan Quest level be created was something of a revelation. The editor was built so that you could paint levels into existence, which enormously appealed to me. Frightening wireframe boxes have never let me get past a corridor in most editors, but here the guy was waving his wand on the tablet and it was appearing before him.

He began with a black void, into which appeared a mass of rock, soon covered by his painting in the sea. Once it was covered in water, he then picked out a tool to allow the formation of land, which was risen from the waters, shaped and crafted into an island. Then he dressed that island in grass textures, trees, rocks. This was then brought more to life with animals on the ground and fish creatures in the water. Finally he added a player character. And it was good.

It was Creation. The order of this level coming into existence matched that of many creation myths from many religions, not least the Genesis account of the creation of the world in seven periods. For years we've used the expression "God Game" to describe a genre of management sims, but this was the true God Game. It was being a creator god to a land in which you would then play.

Ontological ludology fnarr

André Bazin, the father of film theory, argued in his 1945 essay - The Ontology of the Photographic Image - that with the advent of the camera painting took on two distinct roles: "the expression of spiritual reality wherein the symbol transcended its model," and "the duplication of the world outside." In going on to argue that the camera is a more pure means of capturing the surface of the world - a desire he attributes to our innate human need to capture the creation of a God in whose image we are made - he states that, as Peter Matthews of the BFI puts it, "the act of photographing the world testifies to the miracle of God's creation."

It's my contention that videogame level editors are at once a forward and backward step in this same process.

The camera, Bazin argues, freed painting from its previous obsessive need for realism and allowed it to become more abstract, more interpretive. With film we get that much closer to documenting reality, and with each evolution of film that Bazin lived to see - colour film, sound, 3D - we took a step nearer.

'Retrospective: Titan Quest' Screenshot 3

Here I am, playing God.

Surely videogames are on the same journey, that constant desperation to improve graphics, to increase fidelity, such that we can think we're watching live football with a casual glance at the latest FIFA or Pro Evolution Soccer. They are yet another human attempt to capture the world. But, I hesitantly suggest, perhaps they're more. Perhaps they're our desire to create our own worlds, to emulate the role of a creator.

Of course games obfuscate Bazin's theories. They attempt to capture reality, while simultaneously attempting to be paintings. But my bare knowledge of film theory and ontology means I'm already so far out my depth my hat is floating loose on the surface of this subject. All I know for sure is: I saw this Titan Quest developer creating with the level editor, and wondered if he rested on the seventh day.

Taking a fall

I've had a go with the level editor that comes bundled with the game (although hidden away in the sub directories), and I'm rubbish at it. I'm clearly a far better player than creator. But there's one more tenuously teleological nature of such things I want to throw out there.

Pressing play is the Fall. When you create a level in a level editor, it's perfect. It's pristine, untouched. It's a bountiful land filled with potential. And sure, I may have packed it with satyr soldiers and archer skellingtons, but right now their murderous intents have not come into being. They merely rock on their feet, a looping animation routine, as peaceful as the swaying tree or circling gull.

'Retrospective: Titan Quest' Screenshot 4

Hand-carved, from the desk of Rich Sullivan.

Were I to load the level up at this point they'd remain equally placid. It's not until I put a player character into the scene and press play that the perfection descends into murder and violence.

And of course until I add a player and press play, it's intensely boring and completely meaningless. Its existence is only meaningful when it's interpreted by a conscious mind. I'm just saying.

And deflate

So, that's my retrospective of Titan Quest. I mean, I probably should have written about how excellent it is that the spell animations scale up as you level up, meaning there's a really rewarding aesthetic feedback as you progress, that takes away from the fact that since the enemies level up as quickly as you do, that progression is essentially non-existent. And said about how funny it is to walk off while someone's talking to you, and hear their sentence fade out as if they've just noticed they're talking to themselves.

I'll also add that if you're going to play it - and I strongly suggest you do, as it's fab - get the Immortal Throne expansion with it, since it improves the original game dramatically with many useful additions and extra collectables.

But for me, it will always be about that odd moment in that studio, watching the level creation, and thinking: blimey, he's playing God.

Comments (33) 1 year ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • frostcircus #1 1 year ago

    I prefer to think of it as playing Slartibartfast
  • Gurrah #2 1 year ago

    Thanks for that small insight in the studio, I am still bummed that IronLore had to close down - more so than other studios, Titan Quest was brilliant. Apart from it's sheer beauty the best feature was the what-you-see-is-what-you-get feature in terms of loot. Even from far away you could pick out single member of a mob who is wearing a shiny, obviously rare armour or weapon.
  • mathare92 #3 1 year ago

    Brilliant piece John.
  • UncleLou #4 1 year ago

    Man, I love(d) that game. Haven't played another game longer in the past few years than TQ. Not as balanced or sophisticated as Diablo 2, but it's the best loot-em-up bar none, with an absolutely insane amount of totally different looking unique items. Still the best-looking game in the genre by a country-mile, too.

    It's about the comforting routine of repetition, an endless sense of progression without barriers...The process is so simple that it's soothing.

    Yes. The genre, when done right, is the Zen of gaming for me, and people complaining about repetitiveness miss the point and simply need to find something else to play.
    Edited by 1 at 05/09/10 @ 09:42
  • DDevil #5 1 year ago

    I never did complete Titan Quest... And I haven't even touched the add-on. Really enjoyed it, but never made it there. Maybe one day...
  • Sharzam #6 1 year ago

    Have this on steam got it in a sale a while back and yet to complete it despite steam saying 15 hours played.

    The closet you can get to diable without being diablo, torchlight is to simplicistic to be considered althourgh thats also a good game.

    edit: 'Immortal Throne' improves the game no end, little touchs and reworking its not just for the added content a bit like LoD was for D2. I highly reccommed you play immortal throne instead of vanilla TQ. Which is also said at the end of the article.
    Edited by 2 at 05/09/10 @ 10:01
  • menage #7 1 year ago

    Titan Quest was good fun, I might fire it up again.
  • Waffleaber #8 1 year ago

    I do love a good article here on Arthousegamer

    Bought this in a steam sale on my housemates advice but never fired it up. Time for some multiplayer goodness I think.
  • Serai #9 1 year ago

    Great multiplayer game.
  • Miths #10 1 year ago

    Titan Quest and expansion remains my favourite "Diablo clone" - and in some way I actually enjoyed it more than Diablo/D2, thanks to the greek mythology setting and the often beautiful game world (some of the Hades and Elysium levels in Immortal Throne were particularly impressive if I recall correctly).

    I don't have the original discs anymore, but I've been eying the Steam version for a while, thinking about diving in again.

    Torchlight was quite entertaining as well - and I definitely plan on buying the upcoming sequel - but it was a bit too streamlined for my taste, and, ironically enough for a game in this genre, had too much damn loot.
  • Abscido #11 1 year ago

    Nice piece John, if somewhat sad. A reminder that genuine passion - and even a decent end product - still isn't enough for many game studios. In saying that, at least the Ironlore-derived Crate Entertainment have Grim Dawn in the works.
  • ExplodingClown #12 1 year ago

    Didn't understand the long words. Loved Titan Quest though.
  • Ryboy #13 1 year ago

    I adore this game... Lost countless girlfriends to it.
  • Miths #14 1 year ago

    "Lost countless girlfriends to it."

    Exactly how many girlfriends - or even just one night stands for that matter - can you manage to squeeze into the time frame of a ~30-40 hour game? :)
  • munki83 #15 1 year ago

    Titan Quest was a fun game but I never got past the Egyptian levels due to being distracted by other games.
  • Hantheman #16 1 year ago

    You can pick up the gold edition on Steam for £10. Not bad really.
  • Desheep #17 1 year ago

    I think the main problem I had with the game was that enemies tended to do damage as a percentage of your life bar, instead of a fixed amount of damage. So essentially, it didn't matter if you had 200hp or 20,000hp - if you were hit by a giant, 75% of your health was gone.

    I don't remember the exact numbers, but you get the idea. I loved the graphics and the characters, but it was very frustrating to feel no more powerful at the highest level than you did at the lowest.
  • UncleLou #18 1 year ago

    TOO MUCH WALKING NO RANDOM MAPS NO FUN SKILL SYSTEM AND NOT ENOUGH DIFFERENT MONSTERS.

    There was much walking, yes, but who cares if the way you walk is full of monsters to kill? :)

    Loved the epic feel of the game, it felt like a real long journey. No random maps are a blessing and a curse - the hand-made maps are beautiful, but obviously they lack variety upon repeated play. Grim Dawn will have both, a hand-drawn overworld and randomised dungeons. Really liked the skill system myself, although it had a few strange omissions.

    What I really don't understand is your comment regarding monster variety, I find the variety in TQ staggering, and, just as with loot variety, it really raised the bar in that respect in the genre. They also mixed them within areas a lot, unlike, say, Sacred 2, where you fight the same 2 or 3 enemy types for hours.
  • Bleh #19 1 year ago

    A wonderful game, it was very sad to hear Iron Lore wasn't anymore. But than Crate Entertainment returned from the ashes and I can't wait for Grim Dawn.
  • Ryboy #20 1 year ago

    @Miths - I only really meant it as a bit tongue-in-cheek. Chill the fuck out.
  • brod #21 1 year ago

    This game was rather good. It's on Steam if anyone's interested in checking it out.
  • itsfuzzy #22 1 year ago

    Maybe they could have tried to port it to PS3 and 360 to get it to as many people as possible.
    Shame about the studio
  • Postumo #23 1 year ago

    mmm i remember this game being unplayable due to many bugs. It freezed my computer and sometimes it ran at 1 frame per second... i quit because of this.
  • r3n #24 1 year ago

    Hurrah for dictionaries.
  • yegon #25 1 year ago

    Awesome awesome game. Judged on a single run through, I actually prefer it to Diablo 2, possibly because I came to D2 late, long after playing TQ. I fully recognize the strengths of D2 though, Ive finished it many times, whereas Id struggle to bring myself to play through TQ again.
  • Ajay #26 1 year ago

    In some ways, I got off to a rough start with TQ - because of the way you merge classes to make your own one I had difficulty finding a build I was happy with. Not that it's TQ's fault that I had an oddly-specific preference for a certain type of dual-wielding melee build, but the unexpected leeway did blindside me. In a good way.

    It does a lot of things better than D2 - the ability to respec your main skills being perhaps the most obvious - but the atmosphere, level progression and sheer amount of potential skill classes really makes it its own game. Faults? Sure - the technical ones (mostly fixed now) already mentioned, the potential for the gameplay to fall back on constant potion-chugging to survive if you choose some builds and being unable to respec your stat attributes are the only real ones, but I've poured too many hours into it for me to care. Superb game.
  • craziii #27 1 year ago

    I never got hit by the bugs people were complaining about. lucky? I simply found the game to be a bore fest. level design was bad, compare to diablo series. they look beautiful but bad design. extremely linear. I played it once and got bored. zero replay value except when I want to try out a new class. in the diablo series, quests and new areas branch out from the quest hub/city/camp. when everything is done for 1 zone, the final boss fight leads to a new area. I know I may sound silly, but this is what I felt when I played it.
  • SproutWinkler #28 1 year ago

    I loved this game and the expansion. I must have played through this 4-5 times. IIRC the final boss battle in the expansion was a walk in the park compared to Typhon in the original. Shoot arrow, run away quickly, shoot arrow, run away quickly, (repeat)...
  • Grayvern #29 1 year ago

    André Bazin sounds like an Idiot. Auteur theory is part of the reason games will grow more slowly as a respected medium than they should. And argiung that any director is solely responsible for a film is almost clinically insane in it's idiocy.

    Ive only ever been able to get into Diablo 2 in terms of hack and slashers. Titan quest left me cold I think perhaps because of the source material.
    Edited by 1 at 13/09/10 @ 00:35
  • himmelsturmerIX #30 1 year ago

    I'm currently playing Titan Quest. Have not finished it yet. Getting it as part of THQ pack from Steam. Good game. My character apparently is a soothsayer, with 2 wolves and 1 archer as bodyguard.
  • dingo75 #31 1 year ago

    Late to the party but it's on the Direct 2 Drive "Summer Ends" sale right now for $6.
    [link url=http://www.direct2drive.com/177/3304 /product/Buy-Titan-Quest-Bundle-Download
    ]http://ww w.direct2drive.com/177/3304/pro...[/link]

    Currently I'm playing Sacred 2 + addon and it matches the beauty of Titan Quest graphics-wise.
    I haven't played that much of Titan Quest (I think I quit at the end of the Greek chapter when I missed to activate a teleporter or something before going into Egypt) so I can't really compare them gameplay-wise.

    I plan to play Titan Quest again in a while though.
  • AOFanboi #32 1 year ago

    "Last year's Torchlight lets your pet go do that."

    Or even further back, Torchlight's "prequel" F.A.T.E. did too.

    http://games.wildt angent.com/fate/
  • Bumbuliuz #33 1 year ago

    Great Diablo kind of game and easy to recommend. Plus it´s quite cheap to get.