Runic Games released the mod tools for its critical darling dungeon crawler Torchlight after launch, but the fanbase wasted no time digging in. The dev team at Runic Games still plays their own game – always a good sign – and shared some of their favorite mods with us. See what the developers think the cream of their community's crop is below:
 
Jason Beck, Art Director

Although there have been more ambitious and involved mods...I'm sticking with the "Doggles" mod. I liked that it tried to stay in our universe/style and extrapolate the next step rather than jamming a pop-culture reference or some other IP into the game (not that those aren't fun too). The "Doggles" seemed like one of the mods that was trying to figure our world out, which is huge in my book...the first, small step into acceptance of the IP and our strange mashup elements.

 
Marsh Lefler, Lead Programmer

My favorite mod was the one where a user named Prestige found a boss we never had time to get in. They then merged multiple tilesets together to create a whole new type of dungeon and added the missing boss monster. This mod is not only super polished; it's really fun! And who doesn't like to fight a giant Leviathan? Look for "Starch the Monster Hunter 2: Leviathan". [pictured at top of page – Ed.]

Another mod that somebody made the first couple days of release, which still exists on most of the computers here in the office, is the Brock Samson skin. Yeah, it's is pretty *** awesome!

Note: Runic Games does not endorse piracy and cannot comment on the legal ambiguity of this skin, but thinks that The Venture Brothers are really, really awesome.

There have also been so many new classes created that I could do an entire magazine writeup featuring them all. However, if I had to pick one for the public to check out, I would probably go with the class created by the user Slybones: the Decimator class. Do a search for "Decimator Robot Class" on YouTube – pretty amazing.

Last, I just wanted to mention a mod I just ran across by user Ivanpcl. The mod looks pretty massive and, more importantly, pretty awesome. It's called "The Chinese Legend: Celestrial Mausoleum". You can watch a video of it on YouTube as well.

John Dunbar, Zombie Pyrotechnician

[That's his actual title. Runic might even be a cooler place to work than this is. – Ed.]

I’m a big fan of Slybones’s Decimator Robot. I can’t wait to stomp around the dungeon mowing down monsters with its machine gun arm.
 
I also really like Fayd’s Arithmancy, Thaumaturgy, and Geomancy mods. They add a ton of gem recipes and makes the whole gem transmutation system function more smoothly. My favorite thing about it is that it’s an unambiguous improvement to the game that doesn’t throw off balance or change the flavor of the world.

While it’s not technically a mod, we should also send a shout out to TorchLeech, a great mod manager. It makes it really easy to install mods, check for downloads, and keep them up to date. If you’re looking to try some Torchlight mods, grabbing TorchLeech is a great place to start!

Brock Jones, Producer

My favorite is a blatant copyright violation Destroyer reskin of a certain Swedish murder machine... :)

Matt Tanwanteng, Engineer

I love just seeing all these different ideas take shape in our game. Most recently, Matt Nguyen's Spirit Dancer class is a fun class that has a distinct feel from the original three, largely due to it's abilities that allow the class to continue moving through attacks. There's a full set of varied skills, and one specialized variant feels quite unique from the others.

I'm looking forward to the Decimator robot, a full class mod with a new skillset, a new model, and animations, as well as a new helper robot pet.
 
Wonder Russell, Minister of Culture

There you have it, seven of our favorite Torchlight mods, and two mods that are office-wide favorites. We owe many thanks to our talented and creative community of modders – you guys have really impressed us! We couldn’t be happier that Torchlight continues to reinvent itself through your imaginations.
 
Also, a big thank you to Webbstre and Torchleech, who host the mods here and are just plain awesome.