Namco Stalls Hellgate: London Relaunch

[Keane Ng]

Namco Stalls Hellgate: London Relaunch

HanbitSoft, the Korean publisher that owns Hellgate: London, is interested in relaunching the game in the US and Europe, but can't because of Namco Bandai's license on the game in Western territories.

Good news and bad news for people still interested in what used to be Flagship Studios' troubled Hellgate: London. Good news: HanbitSoft, the Korean company that swooped in and bought the property after Flagship went down in flames, has heard the cries of Western gamers still eager to get their Hellgate on and want to relaunch the game in Europe and the US.

Bad news? They can't do it...legally. "HanbitSoft does own the intellectual property of Hellgate: London and is interested in providing the game in the US and Europe, but is unable to do so at this time because Namco Bandai has the publishing rights for those regions," Kee Young Kim, CEO of HabitSoft, said [http://hanbitgame-espresso.blogspot.com/2009/04/hellgate-news.html].

Technically, HanbitSoft wouldn't be so much relaunching the game in the complete sense of the word. Specifically, the servers that Namco shut down at the end of January this year would stay shut down - HanbitSoft would only open up the Korean server so that US and European players can access it. Unfortunately, this "will constitute infringing upon Namco Bandai's publishing rights in the US and Europe."

HanbitSoft says they're "doing its best to improve the game," and are clearly committed to bringing the game to the West - they've already got a studio set up in San Francisco that's working on the game at the moment. Maybe they'll work something out with Namco, who are just sitting on dead servers anyway. So keep hope alive. I mean, that's if you even still want to play the game again.

[Via Gamasutra [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=23027/]]

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[Doug]

Reminds me of the idiots in the Ministry of Defence here who bought about 7 chinnock helicopters WITHOUT the software to run it. Idiots.

 

[Skeleon]

Honestly, who still cares about that game? :-|
Well, if their development team somehow manages to make it fun, I'll have to rethink my opinion, but right now...

 

[Lord_Ascendant]

Hellgate was garbage why do they want to re-launch it.

World of Warcraft will dominate the universe until someone takes an axe to all the Blizzard Execs/employees. The game is just that good and addicting. Face it

 

[cainx10a]

I wonder what happened to the 2nd content pack for the game, if the Hanbitsoft team actually used the material left being by FS, and worked on it. But nevermind that, at this point, Lotr:Online, and hopefully, DarfFAIL or d3, whichever comes out first (), will probably steal my soul.

 

[roekenny]

maybe if they work on it for a few years to polish it and make it playable and do all the things said in the hype might be intresting how fares but if just relaunch the same buggy crap then meh. Saying that yet play a mumorpuger and nothing they do will make me play unless get a strong rp element but that as likely as blizzard closing down WoW servers before have the next version of the game out the door.

 

[SpiritMacardi]

I guess I was one of the few who actually enjoyed Hellgate. Instead of the tired point-and-click combat, it actually felt like I was contributing to the battles.

As to whether Namco will grant publishing rights, I'm unsure. They used to be pretty xenophobic toward America, but they've changed a bit as of late. Heck, they're actually releasing the new Klonoa game over here.

 

[Radmuz]

I also enjoyed Hellgate and was sad to see it die out. The fast action did remind me in some ways of Diablo, which was my first internet game. I am older now and do not like a click fest all the time, but when I am in the right mood a game like Hellgate was great. It did have some major problems though.

 

[Buddahcjcc]

What I dont get is whuy bandai DOESNT want to make money. They could charge the Hellgate dumbasses to play the game and they would, but its like they're sulky little kids who have resorted to taking away their toys and going home.

 

[nicholaxxx]

Hellgate was garbage why do they want to re-launch it.

World of Warcraft will dominate the universe until someone takes an axe to all the Blizzard Execs/employees. The game is just that good and addicting. Face it

...wait until Diablo three comes out, then you can axe whoever you want.

OT: not a bad game, kept me hooked to my computer for a while, and something to do with friends online,would be sweet if they got the rights, but after the release of D3, I won't care a whole hell of a lot anyway

 

[not a zaar]

Hellgate was garbage why do they want to re-launch it.

World of Warcraft will dominate the universe until someone takes an axe to all the Blizzard Execs/employees. The game is just that good and addicting. Face it

Not that I care even a little about MMOs, but without competition WoW would eventually get stale and (even more) boring.

 

[AkJay]

It s a very good concept of the game, but to me, everything just looked the same, i could never really get into it, plus the characters and classes and weapons and stuff, meh.