With the names and legacy behind it, Hellgate: London immediately became one of the most-anticipated, most-talked-about games in the industry. However, it would be almost two years until the first inklings of the team’s project were released to the public. It didn’t take too long before they announced the start of Flagship Studios in September 2003.

In July of that year, the men resigned and brainstormed in secret while the gaming world speculated wildly as to what they could be doing. By then, these devs ( Max Schaefer, Eric Schaefer, David Brevik, and Bill Roper) were riding high off of their success, yet after a dispute with Vivendi in 2003, they felt as though it was time to strike out on their own. Condor later became known as Blizzard North and transformed into the birthplace of the hit games Diablo (1996) and Diablo II (2000). Hellgate’s saga begins back in 1993, when a team of developers formed at Condor Studios. It’s kind of like when you look at pictures of an earthquake and say to anyone near, “I was just standing there a week ago…”įrom its giddy heights of pre-launch hype to the crash simply known as being “Flagshipped” to its subsequent resurrections (yes, plural), Hellgate is a fascinating tale of a good idea, a terrible launch, corporate scapegoating, and bizarre survival. It was only after I bailed that I watched with horror that one of the most infamous chapters of video game disasters took place. I even enjoyed Hellgate: London for a month or so, although something about it never fully clicked with me. I didn’t buy the lifetime sub, if you were wondering, but I did play. I’m just saying that you can’t judge me.). Diablo but with guns and an online persistence - how could we not be intrigued? One of my most vivid memories was being torn between the idea of buying a lifetime subscription deal for $150 or not (again, this was before the free-to-play era, but also before the era of us spending the same money on alpha access. Oh sure, you can scoff now with your perfect 20/20 hindsight, but I’m betting that more than a few of you thought the same with me around that time.

There’s no better way to put it than to say that from the start, Hellgate: London looked all kinds of cool. I was drinking up all of the hot up-and-comers, such as Age of Conan and Warhammer Online, when I caught word that the maker of Diablo was trying to do the same thing again, only more online, in 3-D, and with a cool modern-day/futuristic/horror vibe.

It seems that it really wasn’t too long ago that I was filling in the time between night classes by boning up on video game news.

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