Hellgate London status: Purgatory
by James Egan 
Oct 30th 2008 at 8:00PM
Filed under: Horror, Sci-fi, Business models, MMO industry, Hellgate: London, Rumors
There have been so many twists and turns with the future of Hellgate: London (and Mythos) that it's hard to know what will happen next. We've heard on a few occasions that Hellgate: London was about to face its demise, only to be saved. Adding to the confusion was the dispute over who even owned Hellgate: London, Flagship Studios or HanbitSoft. After Flagship folded, HanbitSoft's claims seemed to be genuine, and the IP was left in the hands of T3 Entertainment. Subscriptions, however, were then suspended. Shortly afterwards Namco-Bandai swept in, prominently featured HG: L on its site... and subsequently removed it. Despite this, the game has been kept running ever since, although Namco-Bandai's stated that the servers will shut down at the end of January, 2009.
Gaming site HellForge has picked up on what we're not ready to call anything more than 'rumor' at this point, but something that perhaps bodes well for the future of the game. Another company name has been thrown into the mix: Redbana (based in Taiwan, connected with the aforementioned T3 Entertainment). HellForge writes: "Further research leads to findings of a new San Francisco office for the company, which is where Hellgate offices were located previously." This seems to be in line with what we reported about the future of both titles in August. While we hope this information could be a positive sign for Hellgate: London and perhaps Mythos as well, at this point it's still largely conjecture.
[Via Blue's News]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
John said on 8:46PM 10-30-2008
I was one of the few who actually really enjoyed this game. I even bought the Collectors Edition last Halloween and always intended to go back to playing it. I hope its saved in one form or another...its a nice game...good quality and beautiful graphics.
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James Egan said on 9:04PM 10-30-2008
I've played it as well, and have enjoyed the drop-in fun whenever I get the urge to play. Collectors Edition as well, got it very cheap.
I'd really like to see Hellgate: London survive all this chaos.
steve said on 2:01PM 10-31-2008
i really liked the game but this up and down and around, around is making me diz just hurry up and decide already lol
NekoAli said on 9:04PM 10-30-2008
Hopefully some company will pick up Hellgate and especially Mythos. Even better would be if they reassemble the creative team. Though they may have run into problems, the games were solid and fun to play.
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Jess said on 9:12PM 10-30-2008
I also enjoyed Hellgate. It was fresh, fast and fun. I think this game serves an example that the days of "launch now, patch later" are fast fading. Hellgate's launch issues and first month made AoC look like the epitome of polish. Hellgate's stability and launch quality were easily the worst I have ever seen. Still, the game only had two servers, it can't cost that much to maintain!
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Wispur said on 9:10AM 10-31-2008
Hellgate was worse than AoC? I can't really comment on that since I avoided AoC like the plague. But, I can say that Hallgate was not the worst MMO launch I've seen, that title would belong to Anarchy Online. Hands down.
I would say that Hellgate's launch was comparable to EQ's and WoW's, all three were buggy as hell and needed numerous patches to make decent. But Anarchy Online... *shudders*
Nadril said on 12:59PM 10-31-2008
Hellgates launch was horrible. A OOM error every 30 minutes? You betcha!
PurityKnight said on 12:45AM 10-31-2008
Why so much effort to try and save this terrible terrible game that is stuck 10 years in the past that hardly anyone played?
It was a disgrace to gaming and should be allowed to die.
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Bissrok said on 9:08AM 10-31-2008
Wasn't Diablo, but I still play the single player every once and awhile. It's a shame they didn't start with Mythos, though. They would have done infinitely better. That game was a blast, even in alpha. Still hope I get to play it again some day...
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