Hellgate Global ramps up its web presence, new trailer released [Updated]

Hellgate: London is back. HanbitSoft and T3Fun are reanimating the corpse of the post-apocalyptic horror RPG/MMO hybrid for a global release in the near future. The title is being developed in Korea, and T3Fun has recently updated its website and Facebook page with a lengthy story video and a few gameplay screens.

The trailer showcases over 12 minutes of CG footage designed to familiarize would-be crusaders with Hellgate's world and their place in it. The short version is that the forces of hell have ransacked the earth. The longer version involves copious amounts of swords, machine guns, curvaceous templars and slavering demons bent on subjugating the local populace.

If you know your gaming history, you'll also know that Hellgate was originally developed by ex-Blizzard staffers before collapsing under the weight of unmet expectations and financial pressures. We'll be keeping a close eye on Hanbitsoft's resurrection project and you can too, starting with the cinematic trailer after the cut.

[Update]: T3Fun and HanbitSoft have officially announced North American closed beta dates for Hellgate, with the kickoff scheduled for June 3rd to June 5th. The game will launch later this year according to a press release.

Reader Comments (41)

This is one that I thought could be a good game but was just so poorly executed ... Hopefully the new developer can do something with it.

not really a new trailer, they used the old cinematics.

Oh boy!, this ones gonna run and run!.

1): Bill Roper, 2): Will my Lifetime Sub still count ....

*builds storm-shelter against impending posts

Really wish this game had a fairer shake. I thought it was a solid base. Just really needed better grouping in it. I have no idea why devs forget the fun of D2:

Go to game browser. Find open game. Join and portal down to the group who is romping through a randomize dungeon.

It was instant action.

@Dracones I imagine that HG:Global with get treated slightly more fairly than the original pay version, especially since expectations are now much lower. The orginal wasn't perfect but was a solidly decent fun romp through whether SP or MP, it was just way too overhyped.

I have high hopes for the new version. Just on concept and genre alone HGG stands apart from anything else out there right now or in the foreseeable future if they can release it soon now.

First-Person-Shooter-Action-Role-Playing-Loot-Driven-SciFi-Multiplayer-Online-Games are not exactly a dime a dozen in the F2P arena. And of the few that there are, how many have a DirectX 10/11 mode? Global Agenda comes close... so does Planetside Next... still not quite there though.

That old trailer is still cool too!

Well, "RPG/MMO hybrid" is a new one for me. Does this indicate the game is more (SP)RPG than MMO?

Anyways, I wish them well.

I never played the original Hellgate, since it looked depressingly grim and because the overall player reaction to the game was so negative. I'll be curious to see how they have revamped the game, however.

@Tom in VA

It's hard to say what the new version will be at this point, but the original couldn't decide if it wanted to be an MMO or a single player RPG with multiplayer elements, which was part of the problem imo.

@Jef Reahard

Thank you for the explanation.

My hope is that they'll aim for the latter, i.e., "a single player RPG with multiplayer elements" (in other words, a CORPG). That type of game would interest me, at least.

@Tom in VA

Maybe they meant RPG as in Rocket Propelled Grenade. :) I seem to remember a weapon or two in Hellgate that almost fit that description. Good fun!

@Tom in VA Diablo with guns, mostly- the RPG part is talent trees. It should never have had a paid subscription model. One of the main problems with this game was that it couldn't justify that monthly fee. Should have gone the Guild Wars route, but oh well.

Toward the end there was a buildup to a mythical patch (1.2 i think) that was going to address a laundry list of issues, but it never made it off the test server before the lights went out. The game had some potential, I had fun with it while it lasted.

@Jef Reahard actually Jef, the problem of the original was that it clearly was a CORPG but the devs marketed it as a fully fledged MMO, and they kept doing till the bitter end. even for a CORPG it was rather bad...everything could be soloed with lil to no effort, bosses included.

actually at the end they tried to do exactly that, make HG:L into a real MMO. Sadly they had almost ran out of funds and were short of staff by then, so...close but no cigar.

maybe if they had spent less time arguing with the community on the forums and defending the undefendable, it would have succeeded.

Because this is working out so well for the new APB...

Is anyone else bothered by this emerging trend of trying to make bad games good? I think it would be one thing if a developer was just using the IP and creating a new game from the ground up, but these attempts to shoehorn potentially good ideas into broken games to "fix" them seems cheap and lazy. I don't have a lot of confidence in strategies like this.

@Apakal

Well Hanbitsoft loaned Flagship a lot of money, and then when Flagship kicked the bucket all Hanbit had was whatever was left of Hellgate. It's understandable why they'd want to at least try to recoup some of their money with it.

The game was finished after all (in a sense), so it shouldn't have been a huge amount of work to relaunch it. Obviously it's not gonna be a smash hit, but it should at least generate some money with minimal spending. They've probably redesigned it to operate on a small scale.

@Apakal

I don't think you can make bad games good, but I do think you can make mediocre and failing games moderately successful and viable by reinventing them. It all depends on how it's done. DDO comes to mind.

Im guessing will know more after E3. Hmmm RPG MMO I wonder where Ive heard that before??

Oh yeah SW:ToR and Secret World... ;) It looks like they might be trying to meld the two together. At any rate I wish them well and hope I can try it out.

WOw, good luck to them I'd love to see this succeed.

this really doesn't need to be resurrected, there's enough bad games being made fresh from scratch, we don't need to start digging up the cemetery.

Go make an Iphone game and stop polluting my genre with this trash

If people are going to play it and there is an audience, good for them.

Why deny the die-hard fans and/or the small group of people playing what they find fun in just because some people either A.) Don't like the game or B.) Sucked at it so now have a bitter attitude toward it.

I want my Hellgate back!!

Well good luck with that. There's far too much good competition in the MMO world, both now and in the near future, to come out with a crappy game. I'm not saying this is going to be crappy as I obviously haven't seen any gameplay footage let alone played it, but unless you deliver the goods from day 1, consider your game DOA. It doesn't help that the brand name already leaves a sour taste in some people's mouths though...

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Hellgate Global ramps up its web presence, new trailer released [Updated]

Reader Comments (41)

Posted: May 18th 2011 10:36AM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 18th 2011 10:45AM (Unverified) said

Posted: May 18th 2011 10:52AM SiML said

Posted: May 18th 2011 10:52AM Dracones said

Posted: May 18th 2011 1:14PM Slayblaze said

Posted: May 18th 2011 11:01AM Tom in VA said

Posted: May 18th 2011 11:05AM Jef Reahard said

Posted: May 18th 2011 12:55PM Tom in VA said

Posted: May 18th 2011 4:45PM wondersmith said

Posted: May 18th 2011 6:58PM preciousj said

Posted: May 19th 2011 7:44AM Fabius Bile said

Posted: May 18th 2011 11:36AM Apakal said

Posted: May 18th 2011 12:04PM ImperialPanda said

Posted: May 18th 2011 12:46PM Tom in VA said

Posted: May 18th 2011 11:40AM uberman3000 said

Posted: May 18th 2011 12:05PM Valentina said

Posted: May 18th 2011 12:05PM tooright said

Posted: May 18th 2011 3:37PM Ratham said

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Posted: May 18th 2011 12:59PM PrimeSynergy said

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