Titan Quest: Atlantis

Developer: Pieces Interactive / THQ Nordic | Publisher: THQ Nordic | Release Date: 9 May 2019 | Genre: Action RPG / Hack and Slash | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

Unlike Immortal Throne and Ragnarök, which extend the main journey after completing the preceding campaign, Titan Quest: Atlantis is structured as an optional diversion. It can be accessed from the opening area outside Rhodes during Act IV, where the hero encounters an explorer named Marinos searching for the mythical city of Atlantis.

This is important because Atlantis is not a conventional sixth act despite containing several new regions, enemies, quests, and bosses. Within the game’s quest log, the entire adventure is effectively treated as one enormous side quest. Players can pursue it after reaching Rhodes, ignore it completely, or return later after progressing further through the campaign.

The problem with that flexibility is that the expansion’s place within the broader progression feels unclear. Starting it during Act IV provides more relevant experience and equipment, but the abrupt diversion clashes with the urgent journey into Hades. Leaving it until after Ragnarök, as we did, avoids interrupting the story but makes much of the loot practically worthless.

The adventure begins with a search for the legendary Diary of Herakles, which supposedly contains information leading to Atlantis. This sends the hero west across the Mediterranean, beginning in the Phoenician city of Gadir before continuing through coastal settlements, wilderness, caves, deserts, mountains, and increasingly fantastical territory.

The early portions feel more like an archaeological expedition than an apocalyptic struggle. Marinos is convinced that Atlantis can be found, and the hero tags along while collecting the information and artefacts necessary to continue the search. It is a thinner narrative hook than the threats driving the main campaign or Ragnarök, but it suits the optional nature of the expansion.

Once the journey finally reaches Atlantis, the scenery becomes considerably more imaginative. Ancient ruins, tropical vegetation, waterways, and vivid caverns establish a civilisation that feels distinct from Greece, Egypt, Asia, Hades, and northern Europe.

There are several unique areas that stand among the most colourful locations in Titan Quest. The expansion is particularly fond of intense blues, greens, purples, and oranges, giving its environments an almost dreamlike appearance. It takes some time before the adventure reaches its namesake city, but the visual payoff is worth seeing.

The enemy roster is similarly colourful. Giant salamanders, aquatic creatures, insects, tribal warriors, and unfamiliar beasts replace many of the mythological families encountered in earlier acts. Even when their combat roles are familiar, their designs help Atlantis maintain its own personality.

Combat itself remains fundamentally unchanged. Players explore from an isometric perspective, click enemies to attack, use abilities assigned to the hotbar, collect equipment, drink potions, and gradually refine a character built from two Masteries.

Atlantis assumes that players already understand these systems. Its enemies appear in sizeable groups and frequently mix melee attackers with ranged units, spellcasters, and creatures capable of applying status effects. Anyone entering with weak resistances or an unfocused build can encounter sudden difficulty spikes.

Some opponents are unusually durable, particularly when compared with the ordinary enemies surrounding them. Large creatures can absorb a considerable amount of punishment without necessarily presenting a more interesting tactical challenge. This occasionally makes combat feel slower rather than more demanding.

The expansion’s strongest encounters involve unusual enemy combinations or visually distinctive bosses. Its weakest simply place damage-heavy creatures in the player’s path and rely on inflated survivability. The balance is not disastrous, but it is less consistent than in the better portions of the original campaign.

Atlantis does not introduce an eleventh Mastery. Instead, it expands all ten existing Masteries with another skill tier. This gives established characters additional abilities to pursue and allows builds that had already filled their most important skill lines to continue developing.

The new skills include active attacks, passive improvements, crowd-control options, pet enhancements, and defensive abilities. Their usefulness varies heavily by build. Some provide worthwhile new tools, while others require such a large investment in the Mastery bar that a character may have more valuable places to spend the points.

This system benefits characters progressing naturally through multiple difficulties more than heroes simply visiting Atlantis once. A character with spare skill points can incorporate the additions immediately, whereas one already stretched across several essential abilities may need to visit a Mystic and reconsider the build.

The lack of a new Mastery makes Atlantis less transformative than Ragnarök. Rune created new class combinations and supported an entirely different family of builds. Atlantis expands the options within existing characters but rarely changes their basic identity.

New items, relics, charms, recipes, and unique rewards have also been added. Unfortunately, the equipment balance suffers from the expansion’s awkward position in the campaign. After completing Ragnarök, we did not find a single weapon or piece of armour that improved our existing loadout.

This turned the constant loot drops into little more than vendor stock. Spears and tridents appeared endlessly, fitting the Mediterranean and aquatic theme but becoming repetitive long before the conclusion. Instead of carefully examining promising equipment, we eventually expected almost everything to be sold.

Players tackling Atlantis earlier may have a different experience. Its equipment is more appropriately positioned around Act IV progression, before the higher-level rewards available throughout Ragnarök. However, the game does not communicate particularly clearly when the expansion should be played, making it easy to approach at a point where its rewards have already been surpassed.

The casino merchant provides somewhere to spend the enormous quantities of gold accumulated during a long campaign. Purchasing an orb produces randomly generated loot, essentially allowing excess currency to be converted into another opportunity for useful equipment.

It is a welcome gold sink, especially since ordinary merchants rarely offer meaningful purchases to an established character. The random results mean it should not be mistaken for a reliable upgrade system, but it gives accumulated wealth a purpose beyond reclaiming skill points or buying potions.

Atlantis also introduced quality-of-life improvements affecting the wider game. Quick casting allows targeted abilities to activate directly at the cursor without requiring an additional click. This makes repeated spell use considerably smoother and brings the controls closer to those of newer action RPGs.

Storage was improved with additional space intended for relics, charms, Artifacts, and formulas. Items can be transferred more efficiently, while clearer rarity backgrounds and expanded filtering make crowded loot piles easier to evaluate.

These improvements are arguably more important than parts of the campaign. Titan Quest encourages players to collect enormous quantities of components and equipment across numerous characters, so any reduction in inventory friction is valuable. The storage is still not limitless, and serious collectors can fill it quickly, but the expansion makes organisation less exhausting.

Tartarus provides the DLC’s main repeatable activity. Accessible near the Atlantis route, it is a wave-based challenge that can be played alone or cooperatively with up to six players. Players enter an arena and fight through successive groups of enemies before facing a boss. Random elements alter the challenge, and continuing increases the potential reward while placing the run at greater risk. This creates an alternative to repeatedly farming the same campaign bosses.

The idea fits Titan Quest well because it gives completed builds somewhere to demonstrate their strength without starting another full campaign. Enemy density also allows area attacks, pets, crowd control, and cooperative builds to operate at their most spectacular.

In practice, Tartarus is more of a supplementary diversion than a fully developed endgame. The basic wave structure becomes repetitive, and the ageing engine can struggle when the arena fills with creatures and effects. It provides replay value, but it does not rival the more elaborate endgame systems found in Grim Dawn, Diablo III, or Path of Exile.

The main Atlantis questline is relatively compact compared with Ragnarök. Thoroughly exploring every path, completing optional objectives, and clearing the maps extends its duration, but it still feels like a large side adventure rather than another complete act.

This is not necessarily a weakness. Ragnarök occasionally became exhausting because of its oversized regions and lengthy stretches of travel. Atlantis has a more manageable scale and a greater concentration of visually distinctive areas.

However, its structure feels less consequential. Because the entire expedition branches away from Act IV and eventually returns the hero to the existing campaign, little that happens appears to affect the wider journey. It resembles an elaborate holiday taken while the forces of Hades wait patiently for the hero to resume saving the world.

The locations are generally enjoyable to explore, although some routes remain wider and emptier than necessary. Quest directions can also be vague, and the map does not always make elevation changes or entrances immediately obvious.

Graphical improvements introduced alongside Atlantis include ambient occlusion, colour grading, and other rendering enhancements. These additions affect more than the DLC itself, helping the ageing engine produce stronger depth, shadows, and atmospheric colour.

Atlantis benefits most from them. Its environments are among the most intricate in the game, with dense vegetation, reflective water, glowing caverns, unusual rock formations, and elaborate ruins. The art direction creates a convincing sense of reaching somewhere beyond the boundaries of the known world.

Character models and animations remain visibly dated. Humans stand stiffly during conversations, combat animations lack the fluidity of modern action RPGs, and some creatures move awkwardly through the scenery. The expansion cannot escape the technological limitations of a game originally released in 2006.

Mouse and keyboard remain the most practical control method. Movement, attacks, interaction, and looting are handled with the mouse, while abilities can be assigned to keyboard shortcuts. Quick casting provides a noticeable improvement for targeted spells and reduces unnecessary clicks.

The soundtrack complements the Mediterranean journey with atmospheric themes that distinguish Gadir and Atlantis from earlier regions. Music is generally restrained during exploration before becoming more dramatic during major battles and unusual locations.

Environmental sounds such as water, wildlife, machinery, and distant activity help the new areas feel alive. Combat audio remains inherited largely from the base game, mixing familiar weapon and spell effects with new creature sounds.

Voice acting continues the series’ uneven tradition. Some characters provide convincing regional flavour, while others deliver dialogue with awkward emphasis or exaggerated accents. The writing occasionally attempts humour, though it is more likely to produce a mild smile than anything memorable.

Replay value comes from several sources. The Atlantis quest can be completed on Normal, Epic, and Legendary, the expanded Masteries support further character development, and new loot gives collectors additional equipment to pursue. Tartarus offers repeatable combat without requiring another complete campaign run.

Even so, Atlantis is less essential than Immortal Throne or Ragnarök. It adds no new Mastery, its story remains isolated, and players arriving after Act V may have already outgrown most of its rewards. The useful interface and storage improvements strengthen the entire game, but the campaign itself is easier to skip.

Compared with Ragnarök, Atlantis is shorter, more colourful, and less exhausting, but also less ambitious. Ragnarök added an enormous act, throwing weapons, Rune, and a substantial continuation of the story. Atlantis offers beautiful scenery, a handful of new systems, and one large optional expedition.

It is therefore best approached between reaching Rhodes and moving too deeply into later content. Played at that point, its enemies, experience, and equipment fit more naturally. Played after Ragnarök, it becomes a scenic journey where almost every weapon, including the seemingly endless spears and tridents, goes directly to a merchant.