New Torchlight Infinite update adds its fastest hero ever, and a crafting system that totally breaks the Diablo rival's build restrictions

When it comes to the best games like Diablo, there are plenty of real heavy hitters. While Path of Exile is still held up as the gold standard by most, I'll always make time for a new Torchlight Infinite season. XD's free-to-play ARPG is probably the fastest-moving around, and it packs so many additions into each major update that it rivals even the busiest patches Grinding Gear Games has to offer. The new Torchlight Infinite 'Vorax' update has just been revealed, and community manager Andre calls it "one of the most extensive" yet.

As the name suggests, the new Torchlight Infinite update (SS11, if you're keeping count) is all about a substance called Vorax. You'll find many monsters infected by this, and defeating them will rack up your own Vorax supplies. These can then be used for 'Surgical Preparation,' where you're able to stack modifiers on six monster families placed inside incubation tanks. Once you've built a sufficiently scary set of mobs, you can dive into a dedicated arena and battle them, filling antidote vials that will determine your ultimate reward tier based on the level you've raised the beasties to.

You'll also pick up a collection of Vorax limbs, which can be used for the new crafting mechanic, grafting. The equipment built using this system has some key traits that allow you to create previously impossible combinations. Vorax gear ignores normal attribute pools, allowing you to roll stats and attributes that normally can't appear together. As one example, the team shows off a chest piece with armor, evasion, and energy shield all at the same time.

Breaking down legendary gear will now earn you special organs that can be inserted into your Vorax equipment to apply up to two different legendary bonuses per piece. This also transcends typical restrictions, opening up the potential for never-before-seen build combinations. In the endgame, you can then employ Vorax Corrosion to gamble on pushing your grafted affixes to even greater strength.

Our new hero for the season is Vendetta Erika, giving the familiar face an all-new way to play. Her Vendetta's Sting trait turns her into a high-speed assassin who deals more damage to foes the closer she gets. To complement this, her movement skills auto-trigger her main attack skills, meaning there's no need to slow down. She's so fast, in fact, that XD has implemented a special 'slow camera' toggle that you can use if her rapid darting around the screen is causing you to feel a little motion sick.

If Erika's not your style, there's a new spellcasting mechanic called Entangle, where you can attach spells to enemies instead of using them normally. Once applied, the ability will keep auto-casting repeatedly, and can even spread to other nearby opponents. You'll be able to find gear that boosts both Entangle Quantity (how fast it spreads) and Entangle Stack Limit (how many targets it can affect at once), along with other enhancements to its damage. Elsewhere, new combo skills have been added for several other characters, and there's a whole heap of balance changes and new legendary gear to shake up the meta.

In the endgame, there's a new supreme boss, the Allseeing Prophet. You'll need to gather his white orbs while avoiding the black ones as the fight progresses. Beyond him, Night Slayer, the Wilting Plume returns to put your builds to an even tougher test. The Overrealm mechanic has been made core, complete with its own talent tree that will allow you to adapt how it behaves (if you're new to TI, this works much like Path of Exile's Atlas tree).

On the quality-of-life side, XD has deployed the first phase of its ongoing UI overhaul, which should improve visual clarity and readability. This has long been one of Torchlight Infinite's biggest frustrations, so I'm glad the team is taking time to work on it. There are also new-look hero models for Rehan, Carino, and Gemma, along with redesigns for many enemy monsters and visual effects. "The battlefield is going to look more chaotic, more beautiful, and more visceral than ever before," Andre remarks.

There's a whole lot more on the cards, although if you're already familiar with the systems and want more detailed specifics I'd recommend watching XD's full preview. Among the other inclusions are new ways to target farm for gear, improved physics and collision, and additional voice lines complete with more dynamic triggers. There's also an auto-aim feature for mouse and keyboard players to help combat wrist strain during those long farming sessions. "At the end of the day, we really want this to be the smoothest and most fun ARPG experience you can play," Andre concludes.

The Torchlight Infinite Vorax season launches on Thursday January 15 at 6pm PT / 9pm ET (that's Friday January 16 at 2am GMT / 3am CET). You can play for free on Steam. Head here to take a look for yourself. While I wouldn't put it on quite the same pedestal as the genre's champions due to the somewhat overbearing F2P systems, I'd definitely recommend everyone give it a try and see what you make of it.