Titan Quest
| Titan Quest | |||
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| Studio |
 Iron Lore Entertainment Black Forest Games
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| Publisher |
THQ / THQ Nordic (since 2013) 
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| Senior Developer | Brian Sullivan | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
Microsoft Windows: June 26, 2006 iOS, Android: May 18, 2016 Anniversary Edition (PC): August 31, 2016 Xbox One, PlayStation 4: March 2018 Nintendo Switch: July 31, 2018 |
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| platform | Windows , iOS , Android , PlayStation 4 , Xbox One , Nintendo Switch | ||
| Game engine | PathEngine | ||
| genre | Action RPG , hack and slay | ||
| Subject | Mythology , antiquity | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| control | Keyboard , mouse | ||
| system advantages preconditions |
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| medium | DVD-ROM , download | ||
| language | German (text), English (voice output), German (voice output only after language patch) | ||
| Current version | 1.30 | ||
| copy protection | SecuROM 7.00.00.0063 | ||
| Age rating |
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Titan Quest is an action role-playing game for Windows developed by the American company Iron Lore Entertainment , which takes place in a mythological variant of antiquity . It was published worldwide on June 26, 2006 by the American game publisher THQ . The game was developed by a team led by Brian Sullivan, who had previously worked on Age of Empires . After the THQ bankruptcy and the takeover of the trademark rights by the Swedish company Nordic Games AB (now Embracer Group ), a version developed by DotEmu for the mobile operating systems iOS and Android was released in 2016 . The publisher is THQ Nordic , the Austrian subsidiary of the Swedish Embracer Group. An Anniversary Edition followed in 2016 with numerous revisions for the PC. The new edition is also available for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in March 2018 and for Nintendo Switch in July 2018 . The ports were developed by Black Forest Games .
action
As the game progresses, the titans try to regain power on earth. Powerful Telkines (mythologically incorrect) serve as helpers and must be stopped. The entire game is set in the ancient cultures of Greece , Egypt and China (under the historical collective name Orient ). The over 80 species of creatures to be fought are borrowed from the real and mythological fauna of the three regions. Various ancient cities and locations are mostly represented symbolically in the game, for example Delphi , the Palace of Knossos or ancient Memphis .
Act I - Greece
The player starts near a village in Laconia called Helos. There he is asked by the village elder to kill a satyr shaman. When the work is done, he asks the player to travel to Sparta and ask General Leonidas for reinforcements for the village. For an audience, however, the centaur Nessos must first be killed. After Leonidas has promised to comply with the request of the village elder of Helos, the player is sent to Delphi to ask the oracle about the source of the monsters. Before that you pass through the city of Megara , where you talk to a friend of the general named Timon. Delphi is the prophecy of the Pythia that through the caves of Parnassus will run had to learn the answer to the other side. A large monster camp awaits you there, at the end of which you have to fight the three Gorgons . Then one speaks to an envoy of the fictional "Order of Prometheus " named Feiyan. She says that a Telkine is currently attacking Athens . When you get there, he has already moved on, but outside the walls you meet General Leonidas again. In the city, the player is asked by a man named Cyrus, who also belongs to the Order of Prometheus, to visit the catacombs of Athens under the Parthenon and free the leader of the order, Phaedrus, who is guarded by an undead. After a successful rescue, the player is given the task of traveling to Knossos , as it is feared that the Telkine is trying to destroy an ancient artifact in the Minoan labyrinth. After the Minotaur was killed beforehand , one arrives in the "canal room", where one can just hear how the Telkine Megalesios destroys a water basin. If he has been killed, Cyrus appears, who is hiding in a secret passage, and explains that the artifact was the channel between the realm of the gods and that of humans. Because this is now destroyed, the gods can no longer intervene in what is happening on earth. The player should go to Egypt , or rather to Rhakotis , today's Alexandria , to meet a sage named Imhotep there.
Act II - Egypt
He is expected at the port, and he gives the player the task of finding the "Scroll of Conjuration", which is guarded by a large scarab , in the large library and bringing it to the Temple of Ptah in the village of "Sais" . He hopes to be able to hold a ceremony through which the gods could be invoked. However, there are only ruins there, and a Promethian, as the members of the Order of Prometheus call themselves, explains that the temple was attacked by a second Telkine and that Imhotep has fled and is now in Memphis. There he is given the scroll and asked to find the "Eye of Chaos" and the "Hand of Balance". The hand is under the great Sphinx at Giza and is guarded by four large stone statues. To get the eye one has to kill a scorpion man near an oasis called "Fayum" on a temple of Atum . In Memphis, Imhotep explains that the two artifacts form the "scepter of eternity" with which one can call the gods. The conjuration does not work, however, which Imhotep suggests that the gods have already abandoned humans. One is then sent to Thebes and then further into the Valley of the Kings to stop the Telkine. After being found in the tomb of Ramses and killed, he drops a cuneiform tablet . In Thebes this is shown to Imhotep, who explains that the tablet says that in Babylon in the temple of Marduk the sickle of Kronos is hidden. This also seems to explain why the city is being attacked by a third Telkine. You get the scepter of eternity to open a portal in the nearby temple of Hatshepsut , which takes you directly to Babylon.
Act III - Orient
Under the temple, the player must first fight a chimera . Then you come to a room where Feiyan is lying on the floor. She explains that she was involved in a fight with the Telkine, lost and the Telkine escaped with the sickle. It is now a question of following this for a long time. You travel on the Silk Road over the great wall to the capital Chang'an . There you meet Feiyan again, who tells the player to visit the Jade Palace and speak to the Yellow Emperor to find out what the Telkine is up to with the sickle. He says that under Mount Wusao the Titan Typhon was chained by the gods after the Titanomachy and that the Telkine intends to free him so that he can take revenge on the gods. When you arrive there you will witness exactly that: The Telkine severed Typhon's fetters, which immediately disappeared into a portal. After killing the third Telkine, you also go through the portal and land on Olympus . At the summit you meet the Titan, and the final battle ensues. If you have defeated Typhon, Zeus ' voice sounds , which thanks the player for his actions. A portal will open and the next level of difficulty will be unlocked.
Expansion: Immortal Throne
| Titan Quest: Immortal Throne | |||
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| Studio | Iron Lore Entertainment | ||
| Publisher | THQ | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
March 9, 2007 | ||
| platform | Windows | ||
| Game mode | Single player , multiplayer | ||
| medium | 1 DVD-ROM | ||
| Current version | 1.10 1.17a + Fix ( Unofficial Patch ) |
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On March 9, 2007, Immortal Throne was the first add-on to the game. As the fourth act, it includes the plot of the basic game and leads the player into the realm of the dead of Hades , where he has to face new challenges. Similar to z. B. in Diablo II the player must have completed the 3rd act of the main game in order to enter the new areas. The general changes to the gameplay affect the entire game. According to the manufacturer, the playing time is about ten hours.
New content
New are the mastery of dreams , 20 new types of monsters, 30 new quests and 250 new items. The character can now level up to a maximum of 75 (instead of 65 before). An NPC service, the Enchanter, creates powerful artifacts for the player from several ingredients. Items enchanted with relics or talismans can be separated from each other at the enchanter again, whereby a component of his choice is destroyed. A caravan, available in almost all settlements, offers expandable storage space to store more items. The transfer room is accessible for all characters of the player to transfer items. There are also a number of improvements in the user interface.
As a bonus feature, when registering Immortal Throne , buyers received a set of bonus items via a numeric code. However, these are more intended as a gag as they have no particular use other than appearance and name.
Act IV - Underworld
Once you have installed the add-on, you can use the portal on Mount Olympus to get to Rhodes , where the seer Teiresias orders the player to find the "Witch of the Ixian Forest", who is none other than Medea of Colchis . It should help the player to get into Hades . As soon as you have found her, she agrees to help, on condition that the player first acquires the "Eye of the Gray Sisters ". These can be found in the (fictional) "Tsakonian ruins". To get the eye you have to defeat them all first. If you then return to Medea, it opens a portal for the player, which leads to the Epirus region . There you cross the city of "Paseron", which has been almost completely destroyed by demons, and then enter a cave, which brings the player directly to the banks of the underworld river Styx . However, one cannot cross this with the boat of the Charon , since the ferryman has stopped his work for some time for unfathomable reasons. You meet him on a bridge a bit away from the ferry port, but you have to kill him to get to the other bank. There he meets Teiresias a second time, who gives the order to visit the realms of Elysion and speak to the hero Agamemnon . Before that, you first pass the "City of Lost Souls", the place where those shadows eke out their existence whose deeds were neither sufficient to get to the fields of Elysion, nor bad enough for Tartarus . From there you get to the tower of the court, but before you can speak to the three judges Minos , Rhadamanthys and Aiakos (in the game Aecus), you have to defeat Kerberos . The judges reveal that Hades is behind all the attacks and the conversion of Charon to the side of the demons, because he does not want to accept the age of humans, which began with the victory over Typhon, and to subjugate the human world. They grant the player entry to Elysion, where the fallen heroes are already fighting with Hades' demons. There you meet Teiresias for the third and last time, who explains that the salvation of mankind depends on the player's victory over the god of the underworld in a duel. Agamemnon sends the player to Odysseus on the battlefield, who uses a kind of cannon to shoot a hole in the wall of Hades' palace for the player. Directly behind it you meet an old friend: Typhon's undead skeleton stands in the player's way. If you have defeated the Titan a second time, you will find Hades' wife Persephone chained to a divan , who explains that she did not want to participate in the plans to conquer the world and was therefore held captive. Once you have crossed the spacious palace, you meet the god in his throne room and the final battle ensues. As soon as you have won, Persephone appears, who congratulates the player on the victory and opens a victory portal, which unlocks the next level of difficulty.
Extension: Ragnarök
The second add-on, Ragnarök , was released on November 17, 2017 . The installed Anniversary Edition is required for Ragnarök . It is available on the Steam and GOG.com download platforms . The extension was developed by Pieces Interactive.
New content
With the rune master, a tenth championship was added, there are also additional monsters, quests and innovations in the previous files. In addition, the maximum level of the character has been increased to 85.
Act V - Northern Lands
In the last act one arrives in the far north and embarks on the journey of Nordic mythology. There the hero has to complete all kinds of quests of the Nordic gods (Thor, Loki etc.).
Extension: Atlantis
In May 2019, a third add-on was surprisingly released with Atlantis , for which the Anniversary Edition is also required.
New content
Like the previous add-ons, Atlantis also adds a new act in which you travel to the eponymous city. There is no new championship, but the previous championships have been expanded to include new talents.
Gameplay
The loot system differs from other role-playing games in that the killed monsters almost only drop objects that they use; Weapons and armor are mostly available from humanoids, while from animals z. B. usable trophies can be found.
Character system
In contrast to other games of the same genre such as Sacred or Diablo , the player does not select a character class at the beginning of the game , but rather chooses two out of ten specializations, which are known as championships , in the course of the game . He receives the points required for this, as is typical for role-playing games, with every level up or by solving certain tasks. The maximum level a character can reach in this game is 65. With the add-on Immortal Throne , the maximum level is increased to 75, with the second add-on Ragnarök then to 85.
The eight championships in Titan Quest are: Hunting, Martial Arts, Defense, Scam, Earth, Storm, Nature, and Spirit. With the add-on Immortal Throne a ninth championship is added with Traum and with Ragnarök the tenth in the form of the rune master.
Multiplayer system
Titan Quest can be played with up to six players on the LAN or via an Internet connection . A central server does not exist, so one of the players takes over the role of host . The characters of the players are saved locally.
With more players in the game, the strength and number of opponents as well as the amount of objects found in various containers is dynamically adjusted. If only one player takes part, the conditions are the same as in single player mode.
development
technology
The entire game takes place in a zoomable 3D world with light and shadow effects, reflections and day-night changes. It is the first hack & slay game with an extensive physics system. Killed enemies are sometimes thrown away by the blow of a weapon ( ragdoll engine ), tall grasses are pushed aside by people walking through and objects are clearly visible dropped by the opponents or thrown out of opening chests. If they fall into the water, it moves just as it does when it is passed through. The entire game is presented to the player (apart from changing to other countries and teleporting via portals) as a single coherent world; the data is permanently reloaded dynamically in the background without the player noticing anything.
localization
In order to fix the missing translation of the spoken texts, fans provided an unofficial , 235 MB stand-alone language patch in October 2006 , which translates all dubbing voices into German. The patch was not automatically updated via the update function in the game menu. With the expansion Immortal Throne , the Deluxe Edition of Titan Quest or a separate patch , an official translation is now also available. There is also a Gold Edition , which includes both the deluxe version and the add-on Immortal Throne .
Editor system and game modifications
In the version for Windows, Titan Quest offers the player the option of using a very extensive editor and various developer tools to design their own modifications that can change the gameplay and the environment in a comprehensive manner. The scarce to missing documentation was supplemented by the joint work of the community that is still active today.
Since Iron Lore Entertainment closed its doors in 2008 and the support for the game was discontinued, fans first tried to maintain this via fan patches in order to fix remaining bugs .
Other changes range from new worlds and quests to the modification of the number of opponents, items and championships, to their complete replacement with new ones.
Brand takeover and Anniversary Edition
After THQ's bankruptcy and subsequent break-up, the rights to Titan Quest went to the Swedish publisher Nordic Games AB after an auction on April 15, 2013, along with 150 other titles for a total of 4.9 million US dollars . In 2015 Titan Quest was published by DotEmu for the iOS mobile platform . In April 2016, Nordic Games published a surprising new bug fix for the program on the Steam distribution platform . On August 31, 2016, ten years after the appearance of Titan Quest , the company, now renamed THQ Nordic , published the Titan Quest: Anniversary Edition on Steam and GOG.com . This includes the main game as well as the expansion Immortal Throne in a revised version. In this variant, the game was also released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on March 20, 2018 . The version for Nintendo Switch was only released on July 31, 2018.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b yerkyerk: (REL) Bugfix patch 1.17. (No longer available online.) Titanquest.net, November 15, 2012, archived from the original on July 22, 2010 ; accessed on December 8, 2012 (English): " Unfortunately, the studio has since closed down and there will be no more fixes or additions […] the fan patch fixes many remaining bugs and flaws within the game and is the culmination of the hard work of many modders from www.titanquest.net. The goal of the patch is to ensure that even though IronLore has closed its doors, Titan Quest will be continually updated through the efforts of its fans. “ Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b specter: (REL) Patchfix for Fanpatch 1.17 (v1.17c). (No longer available online.) Titanquest.net, February 6, 2012, archived from the original on July 1, 2012 ; accessed on September 21, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ PC Games: Titan Quest: New expansion "Ragnarök" surprisingly published
- ↑ Mathias Dietrich: Titan Quest: Atlantis published out of nowhere - Third addon provides more story and an endless mode. gamestar.de, December 13, 2017, accessed on May 11, 2019 .
- ^ Official language package from THQ "forum.thq.de". Retrieved July 13, 2010 .
- ↑ Mention in "escapist magazine". Retrieved December 12, 2011 .
- ↑ Alexander Sliwinski: THQ auction results: Nordic Games takes Darksiders, Red Faction; 505 Games is Drawn to Life. In: Joystiq . AOL April 22, 2013; archived from the original on January 31, 2015 ; accessed on April 24, 2013 .
- ↑ Marcus Schwarten: DotEmu announces action RPG "Titan Quest" for iOS. iplayapps.de, June 17, 2015, accessed on June 18, 2015 .
- ↑ Beta patch
- ↑ gamestar.de
- ↑ Marcel Kleffmann: Titan Quest will be released together with Immortal Throne for PlayStation 4, Switch and Xbox One. 4players.de, December 13, 2017, accessed on January 12, 2018 .
