flagship posts

Since Flagship Studios' staff exodus, the fate of Hellgate: London, the company's debut title, has been uncertain. Some rumors suggest that Hellgate has been re-acquisitioned by Comerica, an American bank who granted Flagship a sizeable loan. The game's forums went offline last week, effectively silencing the game's vocal community.

Now, quite unexpectedly due to the forums supposedly being offline, a recent forum post on the official Hellgate forums suggests that Namco Bandai will be stepping in to ensure that the game's servers are able to breathe without their current life support.

"I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we'd love to make one," reads the post, which appears to have been made by an official Namco Bandai representative, "but right now, many things are in flux and we don't have all the information yet."

Though brief, the post suggests that an official announcement regarding Namco Bandai's position on Hellgate is forthcoming.

Following official confirmation of their closure and the closing of their Hellgate: London and Mythos forums, Flagship has posted word on their official site that Mythos, Flagship's impending free-to-play action-RPG, is the latest casualty of the development studio's seemingly unexpected demise.

"We regretfully announce that on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 11:59 CST the world of Uld known as Mythos will be going on hiatus," reads Mythos.com. Flagship's staff continues by giving their sincere thanks to the devoted community who supported Mythos and its world of Uld.

One point of consternation and confusion is exact specifics regarding the fate of both the Mythos and Hellgate: London properties. Though some remaining Flagship staff maintain that they still own the rights to both IPs, earlier reports indicated that the rights to Hellgate reverted to Comerica, an American bank who bequeathed a loan to Flagship Studios some months ago. Asia developer HanbitSoft apparently continues to own a large stake of Hellgate, with rumors suggesting that Hanbit might take full control over the IP.

A developer from Flagship Studios' Mythos team has written a forum post to bid the game's community a fond farewell, but not before thanking them for their support. The post has been included in its entirety below.

Well, it's an interesting few days here for all of us. It's just been killing me not to post until now, but I really needed to wait until some things were settled and announced. As you may or may not know Flagship Studios laid off almost all employees effective friday - you should be able to see the press release in the Announcements. Now, on the face of it, that really does sound like the end of Mythos as we know it - but we have a tight-knit team that feels like family and hopes to stick together. Unfortunately, I can't speak at any real length about our immediate plans just yet - but let's say that we hope to have you back up and Beta testing for us in one way or another sometime soon.

You've been an incredible community that we've all felt priveleged to be a part of, and we're not quite ready to let go of that little family just yet. No matter the outcome, this has been a fantastic experience, and I and the team would like to thank each and every one of you for the tireless hours of testing and discussion you've undergone, and the uniquely friendly community spirit that you all helped foster. It's been a treat every step of the way.

So, I'm not exactly sure how long Mythos in its current form will remain up, since it is effectively a testing server. I'll try to get you that information as soon as I can.
In the meantime, I know the rest of the team would love to post their farewells and thanks to all of you. We'll try to keep you as up to date as we can in one way or another.

Thanks again to all of you - and I hope to be seeing all of you online again very, very soon.
Travis

UPDATE: Gamasutra has received word from Flagship Studios that the company "has seen significant staff cuts."

ORIGINAL STORY: A source close to Flagship Studios contacted Big Download to report that nearly everyone in the development studio has been laid off. The studio, responsible for the development of MMO-lite Hellgate: London, was founded by several notable ex-Blizzard North employees such as Bill Roper and Max and Eric Schaefer.

Nothing is known regarding the fate of Hellgate: London, nor the in-development action-RPG Mythos. Expect official word from the development studio to be released within the next several days.

During a recent interview with Eurogamer, Flagship Studios COO Max Schaefer admitted that not only did Hellgate let down more than a few gamers, but the developers weren't exactly thrilled with it either. "When you're starting with a brand new game studio with very limited budget and no existing technologies, that was probably biting off too much," Schaefer said.

Schaefer also touches on a variety of other subjects in the interview, including initially planning to use Mythos as nothing more than a test for Hellgate.

"We decided that we wanted to go back a little to a gameplay style that we were very familiar with, so we could pretty quickly and easily generate a compelling experience for people to actually test this stuff, and in a way that was efficient to make. A lot of Mythos is about efficiency of production. Computer games, especially MMOs, cost so much to make and take so long, so anything that you can do to increase the efficiency of the process is just going to help you out. So since it was just going to be a test first, we thought we'd stay relatively simple, use a Diablo-style camera, relatively simple, cartoony graphics and concentrate on gameplay and features, more so than complex graphics and the latest technologies."

While the gate (presumably in London) to hell was open, swarms of demons poured out and ravished the earth. Unfortunately, quite a few unwanted bugs slipped through as well. A teaser for Flagship Studios' Hellgate London Abyss Chronicles has been released, demonstrating some of the new features and fixes players will find in the upcoming Patch 2.

The trailer contains ruin, devastation, and fire, lots of fire. In short, it's pretty much everything you'd expect of a demonic invasion in London or anywhere else.

Download the HD Hellgate London Abyss Chronicles trailer from Big Download.