"I think that people had incredibly high expectations that we simply didn't meet", Flagship boss Bill Roper has admitted in an interview with PC Zone on Hellgate: London.
Looking back the RPG was surrounded by hefty anticipation due to it hailing from the team responsible for the Diablo series, but it ended up experiencing a rocky launch last year, blighted by major bugs.
Before Flagship Studios, there was Blizzard North. Originally known as Condor, the Redwood-based studio was acquired in 1997 by Blizzard Entertainment. At the time, Blizzard North was hard at work on the development of the game that would be the cornerstone of everything that came after: Diablo.
IGN : Remember Hellgate: London? The dark fantasy action role-playing game came out in 2007 for PC, a year before developer Flagship Studios went bankrupt. Since then, various free-to-play and online revivals have come and gone. Now, 17 years after the release of Hellgate: London, it’s back.
I remember some friends and I all bought Hellgate: London day one because it was made by some original Diablo devs. We had fun playing it, good memories.
PC Invasion: Hellgate: London is back on Steam, but it's not what you expect it to be. It's a single-player game in the vein of Asian MMOs.
Was it really as bad as all that??? or did people seriously get their hopes up too high?.
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......."The JOEY has Spoken"
Hellgate was addictive while you played it, but as soon as you move on to another game you'll probably never pick it up again.
'ballsed' wasn't a word