Shack: The main problem I've always found will skill-based games such as Diablo II is, once I get a really high level skill, I never use that quaint little level 6 skill (or whatever) any more. Once I gain higher skills, will the old ones become worthless? Why should I use them?

Michael Fitch: The key difference here is that your base, first tier skill that you pick up at level 2 gets modifier skills as you unlock the higher tiers, so it never becomes obsolete, it just takes on new characteristics and/or becomes more powerful. The skills you take early can also interact in interesting ways with the skills you take later. For example, if you took the Earth Enchantment early on as part of your Earth mastery, and later you take Warfare and invest in the dual-wielding skill, the enchantment damage stacks on top of the weapon damage; as you invest more points into hitting multiple enemies more often with dual-wield, the enchantment damage also gets applied to more targets more frequently. There really are no dead-ends in the skill system, but like I said, if you find something to not be as useful as you expected (and it doesn’t surprise you by being useful in unexpected ways, which has happened to me more than once), you can also visit a Mystic and re-spec.

Shack: What sort of multiplayer modes will Titan Quest ship with?

Michael Fitch: Titan Quest multiplayer is all about getting together with your buddies and laying the smackdown on the monsters. You can play cooperatively with up to six players online or over a LAN. You can bring your characters from single player to multiplayer and back again whenever you like, so you can go online to trade items with your friends, or play from the beginning of the campaign to the end with your family.

Multiplayer is also one of the places where the class system really shines. When you get together a group with a variety of different mastery combinations, some using melee, others ranged, some with pets, others using buffs and enchantments, not only do you get these really powerful synergies, the screen looks like the 4th of July, with all of the different skill effects going off and the monsters and characters running around.