Disturbing news concerning Hellgate: London surfaced at Gamers With Jobs Press Pass. It seems that the source code for the Flagship Studios upcoming release has been downloaded right out of their computers. Supposedly a Chinese individual hacked into the company's network and made away with nothing less than the entire Hellgate: London source code. According to the story, although he has not been named, the person responsible for this security event is attempting to sell the code on his personal web site.

Responding to a request for comment from the website, Bill Roper stated: "we've heard the same rumors. Obviously this is of concern to us and we've been looking into it, but we haven't been able to ascertain any further information to substantiate those rumors". As not even he can confirm or deny that any code has been lifted from their servers, the rumor mill has gone wild.

Because this is a multiplayer oriented game, a compromised source code means that hackers/cheaters can develop exploits for the game unless the developer goes back and rewrites that portion of the code that was stolen to make it unusable. To what extent the source code of Hellgate: London has been compromised remains to be seen, but the last time a hacker stole a game source code of this magnitude was during the development of Half-Life 2. While Valve launched a massive investigation into the virtual thievery, the already delayed title suffered another year of delays before being released.