Hellgate: London Impressions

GameSpy was given an exclusive look at Hellgate: London, a game being developed by Flagship Studios, a group founded by ex-members of Blizzard that worked on the Diablo series.

For the most part multiplayer will focus on cooperative play. Small teams of adventurers will venture into the Streets and sewers of London to massacre demons as a team. Flagship is planning on setting character limits for each region in order to keep balance: some areas will only be for two or three players, while other special areas may be able to accommodate large groups. ... Most impressive of all, the maps are completely random. Players will venture from one hub to another, and while these "safe zones" are static, the journey between each one will be different for everyone. Games like Diablo have created random 2D dungeons, but to do it in a 3D first-person environment is impressive: Flagship had to design a game engine from scratch (See this feature on the technology for a lowdown). We tooled around these random levels for quite a bit, and the level of detail was incredible; streets and alleys and intersections snaked around unpredictably with random debris providing cover for random groups of randomly-armed demons in unpredictable numbers. This isn't like any first-person game you've ever played.