14 DAY TRIAL // Better lock your doors tight this Halloween because EA and Namco Bandai have just revealed to the press that their demon-infested action RPG, Hellgate: London (the premier title from Flagship Studios), is set to hit North American retailers on October 31, 2007. The European launch will be following shortly after, on November 2. They say Hellgate: London is the next leap in the evolution of the action RPG genre, combining RPG elements with "the visceral action of first-person shooters."
"We wanted to hit the sweet-spot for release in terms of the development schedule and delivering the highest-quality game to our players," said Bill Roper, CEO of Flagship Studios. "Halloween was the perfect fit as it ensures that Hellgate: London will have an appropriate amount of beta testing, while also being an incredibly fun time to unleash the game."
What's great about Hellgate: London is that it offers infinite re-playability, with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies and events. Just as every RPG goes, the player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through an innumerable amount of demons to advance through a deep, rich story-driven campaign. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow each player to create his or her own unique hero, as today's official report informs.
The game looks and plays much like a FPS, even though Hellgate: London combines role-playing game mechanics with first-person shooter gameplay. In the game, characters level up, receive points to spend into skills or character statistics, and the outcome of a battle is influenced as much by items as by player skill. High replayability is attempted through randomly generated levels, randomly placed monsters and fully random item drops and modifiers, as I found out via Wikipedia.
Multiplayer is focused on cooperative player vs. environment (PvE) combat. There will be a simple duel-based player vs. player (PvP) mode, and Elite subscribers will gain access to full-fledged arenas and a PvP ladder. The action RPG is said to be modeled on Diablo II, and so Hellgate: London features no designated tank, healer, or dps classes. Basically, all classes simply do damage and heal themselves. The game offers three different quest types: Storyline, Faction-specific and Task.
Even though EA and Namco have dated the game's release, rating boards still have to do their thing with Hellgate: London, but I guess it won't take long. That is if the game doesn't feature a setting inside the Church of England...! See the game's official website for more info.