habitSoft posts

US fans of the original Hellgate London will be able to play a new version of the online action-RPG very soon. Today Habitsoft has announced that it has obtained the publishing rights to the Hellgate franchise from Namco Bandai for both North America and Europe.

The original game was first developed by Flagship Studios and released in 2007 but the game had a number of issues that made it unplayable for many. Flagship shut down in 2008 and Habitsoft then bought the rights to the series. However it was unable to relaunch the game in the US and Europe due to Namco Bandai's previous publishing agreement. Now that barrier is no longer an issue and Habitsoft plans to relaunch the game in our neck of the woods in the near future. A revamped version of the game, titled Hellgate Resurrection, has already launched in Korea.

The shut down of Flagship Studios caused the development company to close down their plans for a free-to-play MMO title Mythos. However Korean-based developer HanbitSoft announced early on that they acquired the rights to continue the game's development. Today they sent out a press release announcing that they are working to re-launch the game, stating, "MYTHOS is in good condition where it's being reconstructed to become more suitable as online game. We are trying to keep the strengths that the game used to have, and make them even stronger, while eliminating its weaknesses."

At the moment, the official Mythos web site is almost entirely in Korean which makes us wonder if the game itself will be playable for US residents. Meanwhile the original Flagship Studios Mythos team has reformed as Runic Games and announced recently their own original free-to-play MMO Torchlight.

A few weeks ago Hellgate London publisher Namco Bandai announced that they would shut down the online servers for the action-RPG after Jan. 31. However, a note on the Korean Hellgate London web site served to fuel speculation that the game from the now defunct developer Flagship Studios would be revived under a new owner, HabitSoft, and a new developer, Redbana USA.

While that may be true in HabitSoft's home country of Korea, a note on the official Hellgate London US message boards from Namco Bandai has put the brakes that any revival of the game would be here. The note states, "People are speculating and I don't want anyone shocked on January 31, 2009 when the server and forums shut down and there is nothing. Let me explain things a bit to see if it clears up any issues for you. Hanbit owns the IP and rights to publish anywhere other then the US and EU and I think the other territory is Japan. NAMCO owns the rights to publish in the US and EU."

[Via Gamasutra]