Runic Games just announced that Torchlight will be coming to Xbox 360 in Spring 2011! The game will be available for download on Xbox LIVE Arcade as a part of Microsoft’s House Party promotion. The full House Party lineup was revealed at the 2011 Consumer Electronics Show (CES), which kicked off today in Las Vegas.

According to the FAQ, the user interface has been completely overhauled from the ground up. Combat is a little different, but no skills have been omitted from the console version. The only feature that has been removed is secondary weapon sets. Xbox 360 players can also expect to find a new armor set for each class, some new random quests and a new pet. More details can be found in the FAQ after the jump.

Oh, and there are no current plans to bring Torchlight to the PlayStation 3 since Microsoft is acting as publisher for the console release.

Q: What has been changed to make the game work on the 360?

A: The UI is COMPLETELY overhauled from the ground up. Nothing works the same. All new art and navigation. The concept of item ’slots’ is done away with – you just have a number of items you can hold ( 50 – ignores stack counts ). Potions and scrolls stack up to 99. Potions ‘auto pick’ the best potion to heal you or regen mana. You don’t have to think about it or map it. We iterated on the UI a ridiculous amount.

You can have 4 active mapped skills at a time, and a secondary set that you can swap between (using the dpad) for 8 mapped skills. Most of us actually find it easier to use a variety of skills on the console vs. PC, oddly enough.

Force feedback is in for quakes, strikes, low health heartbeats, and tugs on the fishing line. Feels nice.

Q: How are controls different?

A: Control is direct – no virtual cursors ever. Combat is a little different – you move forward slightly with melee attacks and all the attack animations are redone to support this. You don’t ‘target’ enemies – you’ll get a red highlight for a ‘primary’ target that is in range, but for melee attacks you hit everything in your damage cone (secondary targets get secondary damage ). Feels natural and does what you expect.

Ranged combat is actually in many ways easier – kiting and dodging are significantly more viable with a controller and the autotargeting for ranged attacks works pretty well. ‘lobbed’ skills mapped to the triggers have a default distance, but you can finesse them for longer or shorter throws by holding the trigger at a given depth. Combat pace feels ‘faster’ and more maneuverable. If you’ve played classics like Dark Alliance or Champions of Norrath, you have the general idea ( but no jumping ). Movement speed is analog – you can move slower by easing on the stick, something you can’t do at all on PC.

Q: Has anything been removed/added for the console version?

A: No skills have been omitted. Some skills have had alterations to their functionality to make them feel better ( i.e. you don’t select corpses to summon a Nether Imp – you just cast it and if there’s a corpse around, there you go ).

Pretty much everything from the PC version is here. We didn’t remove any features, with the exception of secondary weapon sets, because there was no way we could find that didn’t feel horrible in inventory management. Socketing, enchanting, fishing, the infinite dungeon, item combination, are all represented.

We brought over some goodies from TL2 to the console version. Loading times are much reduced. Better animation blending makes combat snappier ( hard to describe, but you’ll probably feel it ). Automaps are brought over from TL2’s new automap system ( They are rendered out and much more readable, and icons cleave to the borders of the ring ). In addition, there are three new armor sets (one for each class), some new random quests for one of the miners in town, and a new pet – the Chakawary.

Q: Will Torchlight be released for the PS3 / PSN?

A: There are no PS3 plans at this time. Microsoft is acting as the publisher for the XBLA release.