If you love Diablo 4's Necromancer, the next Titan Quest 2 update is made for you

Greek mythology ARPG Titan Quest 2 is doing just about everything I hoped for from the sequel to one of the most beloved games like Diablo. Sticking to a contained experience rather than trying to chase live-service trends, it's building on the fundamentals that made the original a success, like its class mastery system and some gorgeous, crafted area and encounter design. Grimlore Games has also been making some pretty impressive strides through early access, and has just revealed the next addition, which will be immediately popular with fans of Diablo's Necromancer.

The next Titan Quest 2 update is set to launch in April, and its two big additions are summons and talismans, although there are a few extras to look forward to. As another fundamental pillar of its predecessor, Titan Quest 2's summons are "long-awaited and rightly expected," in Grimlore's own words, and they won't be restricted by your class choice. Instead, each mastery will get a summon skill, along with some new passives aimed at boosting the effectiveness of summons.

"We want to support both active and passive playstyles," Grimlore notes. 'Passive play' is what you might typically think of from a summoner build, allowing your minions to do most of the work while you run around, deploying the occasional supporting skill and picking up the loot. Conversely, 'active play' will offer ways to trigger abilities for your companions, or empower them with toggled bonuses. "Players with two summons can, for example, alternate between empowering each and cast their own skills while the effect lasts," the developer explains.

Summons work like auras, meaning you'll need to reserve some of your energy pool to keep them in play. You'll therefore have to carefully consider how much you're taking up, and potentially invest in more energy if you want multiple helpers at once. The good news is that if you're not looking to employ an active summoner playstyle and want to let your minions take the lead, you won't even need to slot the skill into your hotbar. Re-summoning will simply happen automatically if one of your followers is destroyed.

The initial offerings across the five current masteries are rather varied. Storm grants Wisps, which zap your foes with blasts of lightning. Warfare gets the War Banner, a static object that can heal and buff allies, or debuff enemies, depending on your chosen modifiers. Forge brings the Automaton, a "hard-hitting mechanical humanoid" that can be specialized into fire, cold, lightning, or shield, each offering distinct effects.

Earth gets the tankiest option, the Core Dweller, a rock golem that's capable of repeatedly pummeling foes and can cast Fissures for you. Finally, Rogue offers the Shadow Clone. This operates slightly differently from the rest of the pack, acting as a direct summon rather than a sustained skill. It spawns a temporary copy of you that uses a reflection of your equipped gear, with the ability to teleport directly on top of enemies if wielding a melee weapon.

Also coming in the April update are talismans, a new off-hand option for mages that takes the place of shields. They come with a guaranteed increase to energy, which could well prove handy if you're looking to put a multi-summon build together. Grimlore promises that they'll also have some potential for non-caster characters, if you're looking to trade out your defenses for a more aggressive and energy-intensive playstyle.

Epic items (typically among the highest-rarity uniques in Titan Quest 2) are getting an overhaul this month as well. Grimlore admits, "Epics should be among the most exciting items to find. We know that in the past they often didn't live up to that." In an attempt to correct this, expect buffs for "almost every Epic in the game." These include fairly significant reworks or upgrades to the unique effects, while still staying true to the original intent of each item.

You can expect a handful more additions in the final patch notes for the Titan Quest 2 April update when it arrives. Among those, keep your eye out for a range of powerful new affixes on gear and potions, overhauled implicits on staves to "work better for what caster characters are aiming to do," and more ways to build into energy and its related stats that go beyond the addition of talismans.

It doesn't tease the actual date, but Grimlore says the April patch "is nearly ready for release," and promises "many, many other changes" on the cards as well. While Titan Quest 2 remains unfinished as its Early Access journey rolls on, it's been very satisfying to watch it grow, and I'm eager to dive in soon and put the new summons through their paces.