“People are speculating and I don’t want anyone shocked on January 31, 2009 when the server and forums shut down and there is nothing,” said NAMCO’s Diane Migliaccio in a post to the Hellgate: London forums.

Hanbit software had announced an expansion to the game but, explains Migliaccio, “Hanbit owns the IP and rights to publish anywhere other then the US and EU. NAMCO owns the rights to publish in the US and EU.”

New’s about Hellgate’s Future [Hellgate Forums via Blues News]

But wait! New owners of the Hellgate brand, HanbitSoft, have announced that they are hard at work on a new expansion for what they touchingly refer to as “the world’s best game”.

“Our US development studio is currently working on an update that is to surpass ‘The Abyss Chronicles’” HanbitSoft said in a letter to their own PR Manager, “This game will be available through our Web site.”

The letter is signed “Sincerely, Hellgate: London Product Manager – also a fellow user that loves to play Hellgate: London.”

Letter from HGLD Product Manager [Hanbitsoft-GameEspresso via au.Gamespot]

Flagship Studio’s troubled demon hunting MMO will be shut down at midnight on January 31st 2009. Namco Bandai, who have been running the Hellgate servers since Flagship went under, say that the game will be free to play until it is shut down.

The game had been plagued with bugs and operational problems since its 2007 launch and eventually led to its developers, Flagship Studios, going out of business in July this year.

Hellgate: London Closing January 31st [Gamespot]

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]

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.

Seattle, Wash., Aug. 8 — The former Flagship Studios Seattle team is proud to announce their reformation as Runic Games (www.runicgames.com). As the team responsible for the highly-anticipated Mythos at Flagship Studios, Runic Games intends to continue to use their expertise in the Action-RPG MMO genre to create the best games in this market.

The studio is headed by Travis Baldree and Max Schaefer. Travis served as Project Director for Mythos at Flagship Seattle, and previously created the bestselling Action-RPG FATE. Max was the Executive Producer for Mythos, and one of the original founders of Blizzard North, the creators of the bestselling Diablo franchise. He was also one of the founding members of Flagship Studios.

Announcements about Runic Games’ forthcoming projects will be made in the coming days.

For more information about Runic Games, or for inquiries about potential partnerships, please contact us at press@runicgames.com.

Runic Games [Official Site]

Report: T3 To Continue Hellgate, Mythos Development In SF Office [Gamasutra]

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:

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.

Fan site Hellgate Guru first reported that HanbitSoft was taking full control of Hellgate: London and intended to continue the game. That brought a forceful denial from Flagship, and confirmation from HanbitSoft’s own attorneys (who slipped in a backhanded dig at the failing studio, which pretty much confirms Flagship’s demise.)

HanbitSoft’s attorneys said that while they’re an exclusive licencee of Hellgate and Mythos, it’s been pledged only the Mythos IP. Secured lender Comerica gets the Hellgate IP as collateral on the loan. Either way, Flagship does not own either, and also:

[I]t is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open, but HanbitSoft hopes to work with Comerica and some of the team at Flagship to see if there is a way to continue to generate content to keep Hellgate online in Asia and to finish the development of Mythos.

That sounds like the “brand new company” possibility our tipster mentioned. Either way, HanbitSoft says it threw Flagship a lifeboat, and it chose to go to the bottom. Ouch.

Finally, VE3D says it got more confirmation early this morning:

Flagships’s Community Manager, Taylor Balbi, has revealed, through sources, that all Ping0 and Flagship Studios staff have been made redundant. Employees were notified at a company meeting and subsequently informed that the offices will be officially closed on Saturday. Balbi went on to reveal that three of the studio’s top brass dug into their own pockets to provide 30 days of pay to all employees.

Our source says an official announcement will come next week (like what, at E3?)

Flagship Studios’ Closure Confirmed, All Staff Fired, All I.P. Lost [Voodoo Extreme]

If you think morale might suffer on the team, a blog entry from Flagship Studios audio and gameplay manager Guy Somberg suggests you might be right. Somberg said on his blog that work had become “depressing” because of fan response to Hellgate’s issues. (The original post has since been pulled, but MMO fansite IncGamers retrieved it.)

Although Somberg wrote that he loved being part of Flagship, he also expressed a fair bit of worry about many of his colleagues moving on from their jobs: