14 DAY TRIAL // The Flagship Studio related drama is still raging. Hellgate London, the MMO from Flagship, has proven to be such a buggy and unplayable game on launch that the financial situation began to deteriorate and now it seems that the studio no longer has any staff, even if it actually still exists as a company.
As problems hit hard and the firm began to reduce its staff, a lot of people started asking questions regarding the status of Mythos, the upcoming MMO project that the company had under development. At the moment, the beta test for the game is closed down and news is pretty grim when it comes to the future of the title.
The official announcement from Flagship, which came on Friday just as the beta test servers were beginning to be closed, reveals that the current situation is just a "hiatus" and that the beta will be re-launched as soon as the company manages to solve its problems. But it seems unlikely to see Flagship really taking the reigns of Mythos again.
Max Shaefer, executive producer at Flagship, wrote on the forums that "Despite this bump in the road, I think we've succeeded wildly. This is undoubtedly the best game community I've ever seen".
Hellgate is also in a state of limbo at the moment. You can't get a new subscription for the game and you can't renew the one that you currently have, but the release is still running. It seems that HanbitSoft, the company responsible for publishing Hellgate in Korea, is interested in taking over the control of the intellectual property and in further developing the game.
It would be nice if HanbitSoft also took over development duties for Mythos, although the Korean company seems to lack any experience in game development. It would be a shame for a game which is so close to launch to die and go to development Hell.