Any ARPG worth its salt has a deeply involved combat system. Path of Exile, Diablo III, Diablo IV, Titan Quest, Grim Dawn, I can list dozens of ARPGs with solid combat. However, no combat system is worth anything without well-designed enemies to fight. Titan Quest II’s latest developer diary has delved deeper into the Ancient Greek setting, shining a light on new enemy types.

While I won’t spoil the entire development diary for you here, it involves boss encounters. More specifically, the development team at Grimlore Games shined a light on two miniboss encounters, as well as details on their development process. Here is a segment of the diary discussing these boss encounters in depth.

“As far as our vision for these boss encounters goes, studious players that learn the moves of these creatures will be best equipped to respond to them–it’s all about building a rhythm and achieving a clean execution. To aid this learning process, these creatures perform clear sequences of attacks, making it so that clean play can result in victory on a first attempt, provided you survive as you are learning the enemy’s moves!

Mind you, death carries a heavy price in Titan Quest II. The entire encounter that killed you (whether it’s a boss or not) gets fully reset, and you will respawn in the previous hub (convenient teleport options will be provided, though). These creatures will certainly have the tools to put players down when they’re making several mistakes. Even defeats can teach useful lessons, however.

You can also always choose to work on getting a little stronger before returning for your next attempt. You can level up beyond the current area’s level, or simply farm for items that help against the specific boss in question, such as via resistances. On the other hand, if you are looking for even more of a challenge, you can raise the difficulty by invoking rituals.”

The Gryphon and the Hippokampos (pictured in this article) are the two minibosses revealed in the development diary. Both offer unique experiences in combat and provide different challenges to players. The process mentioned above also clearly showcases how these minibosses will provide a clear challenge, not just a simple fight to button-mash through. This doesn’t surprise me though, as the original Titan Quest always had a more challenging approach to encounters.

We still don’t have any release information for Titan Quest II. However, the clear attention to detail and the gorgeous designs showcased so far interest me. When more information is released we’ll have further coverage to share.

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