Titan Quest Anniversary Edition

Titan Quest is a certified classic of the Action RPG genre. And while it paved the way for the likes of Path of Exile, you should instead get Grim Dawn and play it first. It's the spiritual successor to Titan Quest, and, unlike Titan Quest, it hasn't been tainted by THQ Nordic's new development team. It instead retains much of the original team behind Titan Quests' success. That being said, Titan Quest still has something unique to offer.

Titan Quest and its expansion Immortal Throne came out back in 2006/2007 amidst the likes of Torchlight, Fate, and Dungeon Siege. ARPG's were still in their infancy, and Titan Quest was the heavy hitter that established the conventions the genre still uses to this day. It features a unique "class combination" system and an array of flashy skills, and a rich setting full of greek, egyptian, and eastern mythology. The biggest flaw in Titan Quest was its crpytic mechanics, like Attack Rating, Defense Rating, Armour, and Attacks vs Spells. The game wasn't, and to this day isn't, very well balanced, with obviously superior skills, obviously useless skills, and potion-reliant systems for health and mana. Loot didn't appear fast enough for quick characters to see it appear before they got off-screen. Ramps and hills cause some skills to stop working entirely. Music is boring, but most people listen to their own while playing ARPG's anyways.

But it still held up surprisingly well when Anniversary Edition updated the graphics and UI. It was still the same game, but could still compete with the more modern competition. Before THQ Nordic decided to reopen development on it, that is.

Ragnarok was their first expansion, bringing the hero to the land of the Celts. The setting was refreshing, it was pretty, it had lots of graphical improvements, QoL improvements, a level-cap increase, new mastery, new item types, and a lot of content. This was THQ's best expansion, with a cohesive story and relatively straightforward level-design. But it also highlighted THQ's weaknesses. They weren't good at balance, and their level design was lacking. They changed the way enemy resistances worked (making undead and constructs unable to be damaged by certain characters), nerfed some skills, made quest-lines less clear, and made some frustratingly long dead-ends. I remember crawling out of unrewarding caves, and needing to google which unmarked NPC was the correct quest-giver (even though I was reading all the dialogue and following the story as best I could). Many of the new enemies are far too verbal (each and every Humankind likes to yell "AAHG" when they die), and the music is as uninteresting as the original's.

Then Atlantis. THQ had the genius idea to lower their workload by making this expansion one giant side-quest stuck between Acts 3 and 4. It actually worked surprisingly well, allowing you to get plenty geared enough without the need to grind the same content over and over. It also introduced a new tier of skills for each mastery, more QoL improvements, better graphics, a gambling merchant, and endless mode. But it further revealed THQ's weaknesses in level design and balance. The skill tree was shuffled a bit, and while the new highest tier of skills were powerful, they suffered the same problems that Titan Quest of 10 years ago suffered: some were obviously better than others to a stupid degree. The new city of Gadir was too large to navigate comfortably, but pretty to look at. Atlantis itself was full of quest-givers in annoying locations, and sprawling maps that were painful to navigate. Quest rewards rarely felt worth it. On my Epic playthrough I skipped all the side-quests here, and on Legendary I skipped this DLC entirely.

Eternal Embers is their most recent entry, and the worst of the bunch. We return to China, Egypt, and the Silk Road, but with a heavier emphasis on Chinese mythos. This DLC is only available on Legendary Difficulty, perhaps to avoid the workload of rebalancing the rest of the game again like in Ragnarok. Unfortunately, it's not balanced like a the other Legendary acts. It was significantly easier than Act IV (which you have to complete immediately before going to The East), and lacked the frequent Heroic monsters and varied Rares that the other Acts feature. Once again, THQ made a very visually striking experience with deeply flawed level design. The worst instances were winding caves with no meaningful rewards at the end, forcing you to walk back to the start of the cave. Sometimes they featured shrine buffs at the end, which would run out by the time you returned to the entrance. Or in Egypt, there were portals in front of non-functioning staircases that would load you into a (completely optional) dungeon. Rebirth Fountains dotted the edge of side-paths and optional caves, and pairs of "loading torches" would appear in seamingly random spots. It was impossible to tell if the direction you were headed was right or wrong. The quest givers were, again, too far off the beaten path to bother returning to. The cities were absurdly large, wasting my time wondering around them to find an NPC or a door. Loot balance was off, giving me almost 15 complete essences, but not even 1 of each of the new potions. There's a frequently appearing monster than deals huge retaliation damage on every hit, which most builds have no recourse for. Invsibile barriers were abundant, taking the place of natural barriers and visual clarity. The saving graces of this DLC were the final boss, which was a surprisngly demanding fight, and the amount of content contained within. It is around the length of Acts 1-3 combined, if not longer, and there is a lot that I left unexplored.

Titan Quest also gets props for how easy it is to mod. I thoroughly enjoyed tweaking the balance of the game to my liking, making previously useless skills formidable, reverting THQ's monster resistance changes, and lowering cooldowns. This is a huge plus in my mind and can't imagine I would have enjoyed it as much if this tool wasn't available.

So here are my recommendations. Titan Quest Anniversary Edition? Yes, absolutely. The first four Acts are still good. Ragnarok? Still yes. Fresh new setting and QoL improvements. Atlantis? Probably good at a discount, but it adds so much to the base game with new skills that I still recommend it. Eternal Embers? Only at a discount. I found it more frustrating than rewarding, and it doesnt add anything substantial to the base game. I purchased all four in a bundle during a sale for $30 and am very happy with that decision, even with Eternal Embers.