After Flagship Studios announced that Hellgate London would be shutting down, Namco Bandai has announced that they will support the game up until January 31st, 2009.
Santa Clara, Calif., (October 24, 2008) - NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that they will continue to support customers of PC game Hellgate™: London with online server support and play through January 31, 2009 despite the closure of Flagship Studios. In a further gesture of support, Namco Bandai Games will provide this server support free of charge to all fans and players of the game up until the shut down date.
NAMCO BANDAI Games appreciate the enthusiasm of all the Hellgate: London players and looks forward to providing them with future entertainment products.
Read more here.
A shame to be honest. I never played this game, but wanted it to be successful.
I think lifetime subscribers deserve a full refund (which sadly won't happen).
HG:L will end only in NA and EU; Hanbitsoft - the current owner - will continue it, but only in Korea.
That is sooooo lame.
I could have told you this from just playing the Beta. It was a mediocre game to start with. So much for the myth that Diablo was created by those guys, guess the guys that stayed at Blizzard were the real innovators, certainly was not the team that made Hellgate.
It's what Hellgate deserves. It was an extremely linear, repetitive, simplistic FPS from day one of its release, and it didn't improve in any meaningful way. You'd get more depth in a saucer. It's a pity, as it had potential, and I was so keen to play I bought a couple of copies for family members as well, but after a week we realised that what we had seen was all it was ever going to be. In essence, not that great.
I won't miss it, but it finally taught me never to buy a "hot" release until it has been out for around 6 months, to wait and see if the feedback is still enthusiastic. I'll never buy another game from these guys - one trip on the Failboat was enough. They'll long be remembered as the people that introduced the term "Flagshipped" to the gaming community.