Hellgate London Lives Outside NA/EU

Sorry, no Hellgate London for Americans after January 31 despite recent reports.

According to this forum post, Namco Bandai’s Diana "Tiggs" Migliaccio states that while HanbitSoft plans to continue development and support for Hellgate: London, Namco Bandai owns the rights to publish the game in Europe and the United States. Currently HanbitSoft owns the IP and rights to publish anywhere other than those two territories, however Namco Bandai recently announced that it will be shutting down its portion of Hellgate: London in January 2009.

Last month Game Expresso received a letter from Hellgate: London’s Product Manager stating that HanbitSoft indeed planned to move forward with the game. Surprisingly enough, the letter revealed that the company’s U.S. development studio is currently working on an update to "surpass The Abyss Chronicles." To add more additional confirmation, this image over on the Korean Hellgate London website reveals that the online servers will reopen although whether HanbitSoft can regain North American and European rights from Namco Bandai is still up in the air.

With the original development team long dissipated, many may wonder what direction Hellgate London may take, and whether if the game should even remain alive at this point. At launch, Hellgate London received criticism for its current state, slated as extremely buggy, unstable and obviously not finished. Poor sales eventually brought Flagship Studios down to its knees earlier this year, with many employees jumping ship, others later let go by the company’s founding members. After a string of dramatic incidents worthy of the TNT channel (which loves drama according to its slogan), HanbitSoft and Namco Bandai brought the action/RPG PC game out of limbo for the time being.

"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," said Namco Bandai in a press release last month. "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."

Once Namco Bandai shuts down the Hellgate London servers in North America and Europe, it is quite possible that HanbitSoft will purchase the rights and launch its own game servers within those territories. Of course, that’s hopeful thinking, especially for Hellgate: London fans who are counting down the hours until January 31, 2009.