The past several days have been filled with speculation that 'Hellgate: London' developer Flagship Studios has closed its doors and that Flagship's parent company has taken over the rights of Hellgate: London. However, in a statement released by Flagship Studios, CEO Bill Roper explains that the development house founded by former Diablo II members has not shut down, but has laid off most of its workforce.
Roper also went on to explain that because of the troubled times at Flagship Studios, they will no longer be accepting new subscribers to 'Hellgate: London', but those who are already playing the game will now be playing for free.
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.
luck trying to bounce back =]
yeah...
In other words dead!
"We're Not Dead! We Just Fired Everyone!"
ROFL
Fired the Diablo 2 development team eh? Wonder where they'll go now...