Bear in mind Hellgate: London? The darkish fantasy motion role-playing recreation got here out in 2007 for PC, a 12 months earlier than developer Flagship Studios went bankrupt. Since then, numerous free-to-play and on-line revivals have come and gone. Now, 17 years after the discharge of Hellgate: London, it’s again.
Hellgate: London chief creator Invoice Roper, through his new studio Lunacy Video games, has signed a licensing settlement with HanbitSoft (HanbitSoft acquired the rights to the Hellgate franchise from Namco Bandai in 2020) to create a brand new AAA Hellgate recreation, codenamed Hellgate: Redemption. It’s due out sooner or later for console and PC, and is ready in an as-of-yet undisclosed a part of the alternate-history, demon-apocalypse world.
“I’ve dreamed of returning to the franchise we created again in 2007 for a lot of, a few years,” Roper stated. “I’ve at all times felt I had unfinished enterprise with the Hellgate IP, which is why our codename for the challenge is Hellgate: Redemption.”
Hellgate: Redemption is constructed on Unreal Engine 5, Roper added. “We’re maintaining core gameplay and lore parts of Hellgate: London in our present design, however our intent is to construct an thrilling new expertise that takes benefit of the quite a few advances the trade has seen over the previous 17 years for the reason that authentic recreation launched.”
Right here is an outline of the unique recreation, through Lunacy Video games:
Hellgate: London is an influential recreation that was forward of its time in quite a few methods. It pioneered the Looter Shooter style, that includes randomly generated ranges that demanded a proprietary 3D engine with real-time lighting help, and employed a enterprise mannequin that was distinctive on the time, now widely known as a Battle Go. That period of gaming even required the formation of a second firm to construct and function the web portion of Hellgate: London.
Flagship Studios was based in 2003 by Invoice Roper together with Max Schaefer, Erich Schaefer, and David Brevik, a number of builders who labored on Blizzard’s Diablo. Hellgate: London was hotly anticipated, however it launched with numerous bugs that brought on the sport to crash. Roper later admitted the sport was too bold and will have narrowed its focus.
Wesley is the UK Information Editor for IGN. Discover him on Twitter at @wyp100. You may attain Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.