14 DAY TRIAL // Even as Namco Bandai announced its plan to shut down the game server for Hellgate: London on January 31, 2009, HanbitSoft, a Korean publisher and developer, reveals that it fully owns the intellectual property related to the game and that it intends to create and later publish an expansion for the MMO.
HanbitSoft was the game operator for Hellgate in Korea and got into a bit of a war of words with Flagship when it announced it had the rights to the MMO it was publishing. Now the transaction seems complete and HanbitSoft is also saying it has the IP and intends to use another MMO project that Flagship was creating, Mythos, which never got past the beta stage.
T3 Entertainment, a company which has a controlling stake in HanbitSoft, is rumored to have founded a new studio in the United States, staffed with veterans coming from Blizzard and from the now defunct Flagship, in order to create an expansion for Hellgate: London set to be based on the Abyss Chronicles content update which will be available for download late in 2009. Apparently, there are also plans to relaunch the MMO itself sometime after January 31.
An official statement reads “Hellgate: London is now HanbitSoft’s game, and we have already formed a team. They are doing hard work for updates and patches. Service in Asia, including Korea, is in good hands. I believe Mythos is a very attractive MMORPG, just gaining large fans from couple of beta tests. It has a lot of potential, and it will also be developed at the studio in San Francisco with Hellgate: London. Both titles will be presented soon with upgraded features”.
There are currently no details on pricing for the relaunched Hellgate or for the upcoming Mythos. Considering the fact that a Korean company is in charge, we might see a free to play, microtransaction supported model.