Hellgate: London Getting Axed Febuary 2009

After all the controversies, the much hyped MMO Hellgate: London will be closing it’s doors in Febuary 2009.

The writing has been on the wall for some time, and now it’s official: Hellgate: London will be taken offline as of February 1, 2009. As has been the case since Flagship Studios’ collapse was revealed this July, Namco Bandai will continue to operate the game free of charge through January 31.

Hellgate: London Is Not Dead….Yet

Flagship may have lost the IP, but their overhyped MMO is still very much alive. Namco Bandai games have made an “official” annoucement by the means of a forum post:

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.

In the short term, please do not worry. The game is up, the servers are not going away in the short term and any major changes to status will be communicated in advance.

I’d like to ask for your patience as we try to figure it all out and chart a new course. We value your community, your commitment, and your passion for Hellgate and we will make sure that any solution that we architect will support all of you as best as we are able.

Thanks again. We hope to have a real announcement shortly.

__________________
Zack “Ozuri” Karlsson
Sr. Director, Business Development
NAMCO BANDAI Games America, Inc.

Hellgate: London - the game itself, continues to live along. For how long, that’s anybody’s guess. But with salty responses like these, it looks as if Hellgate: London already has one foot in the grave.

Hellgate: London Patch v1.2 Single Player Patch Released

Flagship has released a new patch for their FPS-MMO; Hellgate: London. The patch is for the single player portion of the game and updates/fixes a HUGE amount of things.

General

Based on the number and depth of balance changes to skills in this update, certain characters will be provided a “respec token” that allows them to reassign their skill points. This token is automatically placed in the character’s inventory and can be used at any time.

The timer and quest requirement have been removed from the mini-game.

Full change log and download links after the jump. Read more

Bluehole Licenses Unreal Engine 3

Bluehole Studio Inc. announced today that it has licensed Epic Games’ Unreal Engine 3 for its next-generation, flagship massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for PC, codenamed Project S1. Founded in March 2007, Bluehole boasts an accomplished development team comprised of key members from some of the leading development and management teams in Korea.

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