hellgate

As You Were, Hellgate Not Reopening In US/EU

10:20AM Stuart Houghton | I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you this. Contrary to recent reports, Hellgate: London will only be clawing its way out of the abyss in Asia. Fans of the game in the US and Europe will be bidding the game farewell at the end of January, as expected. More »

Hellgate To Relaunch? Flying Pigs Not Pictured

9:20AM Stuart Houghton | It seems you just can’t keep a good game down. The same may also apply to Hellgate: London – previously announced as shutting up shop for good at the end of January. More »

EA Partners: DeMartini on the ‘Renaissance’

6:40AM Maggie Greene | Gamasutra has a nice five page interview up with David DeMartini of EA Partners, the Electronic Arts division that has released games like Rock Band, Crysis, The Orange Box, and, uh, Hellgate: London in the past year. It’s a pretty wide ranging chat, from discussions of the challenges the come with working with Japanese studios, to acquiring new titles, to the relative disaster of Hellgate: We’re certainly sad with the results for Flagship and what’s happened with Hellgate, because at the time we signed it, we were trying to get involved in a very complicated relationship between Namco and Flagship. We were coming late to the party, and trying to do whatever we could to sprinkle the game magic on the project and get it headed in the right direction. I think that’s an example where all three parties had the best interest of the game in mind, and sometimes the game doesn’t work out. Hellgate is still an incredible concept. The guys who worked on it spent thousands of hours trying to make that concept work, and sometimes we just don’t see something. Sometimes, we just didn’t take enough time. Sometimes, things don’t work out the way you expect. It’s kind of like a film with all big stars — on the script, it should be successful, but the movie doesn’t turn out as good as everybody hoped. That’s why EAP takes a portfolio approach with its games. You have to place a lot of bets, and hope for a lot of hits. Certainly worth a read through — I always enjoy reading interviews that cover a lot of ground, and this certainly satisfies in that respect. David DeMartini on the Renaissance of EA Partners [Gamasutra] More »

Flagship Seattle Alums Form Runic Games

6:00AM Owen Good | You might recall the demise of Hellgate developer Flagship Studios from last month, and the subsequent shutdown of Mythos and IP fight over Hellgate. Now Flagship’s former Seattle team has reconstituted itself as Runic Games, continuing its focus on action-MMORPG games. Travis Baldree, formerly of Flagship Seattle, emailed us Sunday with the news release. He was the project director for Mythos and is now the president of the new venture. Baldree is joined on the management team by Max Schaefer, formerly executive producer for Mythos. Baldree said all 14 on the Seattle team are aboard — “basically the whole Mythos team”. The studio has a Web site, and the full news release is on the jump. More »

Hellgate, Mythos Development Picked Up By Korean Publisher

6:30PM Luke Plunkett | So Flagship (and Hellgate) are sunk, and Mythos has been canned along with them, right? Not necessarily! According to some job postings over on Gamasutra and DICE.com, Korean publisher T3 is opening a development studio in San Francisco, and will continue work on both titles. Seems random, but T3 own a controlling stake in HanbitSoft, Hellgate’s Korean publisher, and the company at the centre of a tussle over ownership of the game as Flagship was going down. A tussle they seem to be well on the way to winning. The news probably won’t matter to Hellgate players since, outside of Korea, there really aren’t any left, but it’s good news for Mythos fans. Report: T3 To Continue Hellgate, Mythos Development In SF Office [Gamasutra] More »

Namco-Bandai Rescuing Hellgate From Sinking Flagship?

2:20AM Leigh Alexander | Namco-Bandai may be stepping in to rescue Hellgate: London from embattled Flagship Studios, who recently suspended private testing for Mythos in the wake of widespread reports that the studio was shutting down. We’ve approached Flagship for comment and they’ve yet to explain their status to us. Then, a posting appeared on Hellgate’s official forums from Namco-Bandai’s senior director of business development, Zack Karlsson, stating: Hello Hellgaters, I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we’d love to make one — but right now, many things are in flux and we don’t have all the information yet. As soon as we do, we’ll post here on the forums, on the website, and anywhere else we can find you. The posting continued:

Flagship Sunk, Who’s In Charge of Hellgate?

1:00AM Owen Good | Word started passing yesterday that Flagship Studios went caput, and now multiple sites are reporting word that the Hellgate developer is indeed no more. We got an anonymous tipster who said Flagship shut down abruptly yesterday, and that developers for both Hellgate (San Francisco) and Mythos (Seattle) have all been pink-slipped. “But there’s also hope that they will all have their jobs back at the end of next week at a brand new company”, our tipster says. But wait, there’s more. Flagship’s Korean partners/owners, Hanbitsoft, were said to be taking over. That sparked a foofaraw regarding who owns the Hellgate intellectual property. More »