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Did YOU ask for Hellgate to come back?

Someone must have. Come on. Confess.

Hellgate is a western development horror story. It wasn't exactly dreadful, or anything like that, but it failed miserably in its attempts to make money through a weird hybrid subscription service.

Put together by former Blizzard employees, it was an action hack-and-slash with similarities to Diablo and classic rogue-likes. The online multiplayer was supposed to be its major selling point, but when developer Flagship went bust (possibly due to a strange, semi-independent funding arrangement outside the games industry) publisher Namco Bandai axed the servers.

Relaunched in Korea as free-to-play title Hellgate: Resurrection thanks to Hanbitsoft, Hellgate has remained out of reach for most western gamers since then thanks to licensing deals.

Until now: a pitch for a new version called Hellgate: Global has popped up on Steam Greenlight.

You have doubts, naturally, but the pitch comes from a company called Redbana, which Eurogamer reports has ties to T3 and Hanbitsoft. These two companies run the Korean version - so it seems this could well be legit.

The new version includes an expansion set in Tokyo which "continues the story of the London Resurrection". This new slab of content includes 24 levels and new monsters and bosses.

What I find interesting is how attitudes to Hellgate have changed. As it was folding, chatter was overwhelmingly negative and it was hard to find someone with something good to say. A couple of years on suddenly everyone has fond memories. I'm not sure this is any balm to the Flagship team, unfortunately, but if its product lives on and wins new fans that's got to be gratifying.

Of the game's failure, Flagship said it simply tried to do too much and didn't meet expectations.

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Hellgate: London

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Brenna Hillier avatar

Brenna Hillier

Contributor

Based in Australia and having come from a lengthy career in the Aussie games media, Brenna worked as VG247's remote Deputy Editor for several years, covering news and events from the other side of the planet to the rest of the team. After leaving VG247, Brenna retired from games media and crossed over to development, working as a writer on several video games.

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