The world is under threat in plenty of video games. In Hob, the world is broken, a vast mechanism that has been gummed up and misaligned. Your job is to save it by fixing it, wielding a sword that looks like a key and tinkering with locks and escapements and cogs and gears, realigning, repositioning, sliding crucial pieces back into place.

There is a thing out there in the world these days called lock sports: people love locks and keys and spend their spare time learning how to mess with them, how to play with tumblers and get the pins bouncing. It is recreational lock-picking, basically, and there's a lot of that appeal to Hob, as you move around, a Link-alike in a carefully reconfigured Hyrule. It goes some way to explaining why this action RPG above all others lingers in the mind and is well worth a second replay now it's finally landed on Switch.

But there's another reason, I think. Hob is almost a very cute game. You are small and determined, and the world is lush and pretty in its greenery, in its sculpted stones and brilliant use of copper to accent then ancient machines and give them a surprising texture. But there is also a splinter of malice in there, a sharp darkness that sticks. There's the pink goop that is spoiling this landscape for starters. Then there is the uncanny long legs and long necks of the creatures you come across, limbs extended and knees knobbly, everything just a little bit off.

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The Mapworks is the heart of Torchlight 2. In many ways it feels like the heart of so much that is great in video games in general. You spawn at the portal and then you walk out, along a narrow golden bridge, to a magical clockwork escapement suspended in the void. I can imagine what the floor feels like here: the glossiness of the crystal and polished metal, and that hum coming up through your feet that suggests vast energies twisting and churning beneath you. The Mapworks is where you get to once Torchlight 2 is all but done, but it's also where you realise that Torchlight 2 is just beginning, and that it never has to end if you don't want it to. The campaign is over, and here, in this stately firmament, you can buy an endless supply of procedurally-generated maps that will take you to an endless stretch of procedurally-generated dungeons.

I went to the Mapworks a few weeks back when I heard Runic Games, the developer that made the Torchlight series, alongside this year's wonderfully intricate Hob, was closing down. The idea was to slip back into Torchlight 2 for a few minutes to remind myself of this team's particular greatness, and then slip back out again to write a quick piece about how much I would miss them and their work. The problem, of course, is obvious. The idea was to slip back into Torchlight 2 for a few minutes... So yes, this farewell to Runic Games is so delayed because I was playing Runic games. I cannot think of a better tribute, to be honest.

Anyway, let's begin this sad task. Here is my second-favourite bit of writing in Torchlight 2: "Flame Hammer". Flame Hammer is the go-to skill I rely on when playing my Engineer, a sort of steampunk pet-class who dashes into battle alongside a clanking, wheezing, skittering collection of Roombas and rollerskates that spit gatling fire and poison at anyone stupid enough to cross their path. Flame Hammer is far more fun than a basic attack in an action RPG should be. Flame Hammer is seismic. I could describe it, but why not quote the flavour text, which does a far better job of it than I could ever hope to? "Your weapon crushes foes it strikes--" All good so far. "--Creating 4 flaming splinters that seek out enemies within 5 meters. If available a Charge is consumed to generate two additional--" Whoa whoa whoa. That's quite enough of that. 4 flaming splinters! That seek out enemies!Within 5 meters!

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