The free-to-play relaunch of Flagship's failed shooter action-RPG Hellgate: London will enter open beta testing in North America and Europe on Thursday, June 3, new co-operator T3 Entertainment has announced. This follows an unusually short three-day closed beta earlier in the month.

There's no word on exactly how long Hellgate's open beta will run for. However, it has to be at least a month, as that's the duration of one of the events celebrating its launch. Four events will reward players with fancy items, tokens, or virtual currency for playing in a large guild, doing daily quests, levelling quickly, and hitting level milestones. Read more »

Last week, HanbitSoft announced it would revive the Hellgate franchise in North America and turn the game into a free-to-play MMO. Today, developer T3 Entertainment has announced that keys for the upcoming closed beta are now available.

Keys are scarce; however, those interested in testing the reborn title can obtain it on Hellgate's official site. There are also a multitude of giveaways on a few select participating sites. Read more »

Back in January 2010, HanbitSoft announced that it had secured the worldwide publishing rights to Flagship's ill-fated action-RPG Hellgate: London and would be bringing it to North America. Until today, it hadn't had much more to say on the subject.

Read more »

Flagship's ill-fated post-Apocalyptic MMORPG Hellgate: London will relaunch in North America, HanbitSoft announced today after securing the worldwide publishing rights.

The publisher picked up the rights from the action RPG's North American and European publisher Namco Bandai, who had continued running Hellgate's servers for several months after Flagship's demise but ultimately shut them down in February, 2009. Read more »

"For all intents and purposes, everyone was flagshipped."

"I'm sure some of you are familiar with that term," said former Flagship business developer Stephen Goldstein. "For those of you who are not, the term 'flagshipped' literally has no less than five definitions in the English language."

An illustrative slide appeared on screen: Read more »

Troubled PC action-RPG Hellgate: London will soon be entirely free-to-play in Asia, Korean publisher HanbitSoft has confirmed, with the game's international fate unknown.

Gamasutra claims the that game "will continue on here [in the West]", though HanbitSoft's official blog does not specify territories for the forthcoming updates. Read more »

Despite the best efforts of Korean publisher HanbitSoft to save the now-defunct Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London (PC), Western rights holder Namco Bandai has put the kibosh on plans to bring HanbitSoft's upcoming expansion over to the United States.

Namco community manager Diane Migliaccio was spotted by Gamasutra as clarifying reports that HanbitSoft now owned the rights to the game. "Hanbit owns the IP and rights to publish anywhere other then the US and EU ... NAMCO owns the rights to publish in the US and EU," wrote Migliaccio on the official Hellgate: London forums. Read more »

Korean publisher HanbitSoft has revealed that it is working on an downloadable expansion for Hellgate: London, and confirmed that it now holds the rights to the troubled PC action-RPG franchise.

The update is meant to "surpass The Abyss Chronicles" content that arrived earlier this year, according to a HanbitSoft statement noticed by Gamasutra. The studio noted that development is occurring in its US studio, likely referring to the new development studio recently founded by HanbitSoft majority shareholder T3 Entertainment. Read more »

Namco Bandai, the North American publisher for the now-defunct Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London (PC), has announced that it will support the game's servers through January 31, 2009, after which they will be shut down.

Until the February shutdown, online multiplayer for the action-RPG will continue to be free as a "further gesture of support" from Namco Bandai. Read more »

Speaking on the demise of Flagship Studios, CEO and founder Bill Roper attributed the closing, in part, to lackluster performance of the action-RPG Hellgate: London (PC), which he admits was "not great."

"The Hellgate game came out, and it wasn't great," Roper told 1UP. "We also had a lot of players who enjoyed the game. And it's not like the game didn't sell at all. But it should have been a lot better. We really take responsibility for not being better. But we can just sit around saying that really sucked, or we can do something about it, and so we were working really hard." Read more »

Though Flagship Studios CEO Bill Roper previously stated that the Hellgate: London and Mythos developer was not shutting down despite having laid off most of its staff, ex-COO Max Schaefer has revealed that it is only open to take care of "final affairs."

"It's barely open," Schaefer explained to GameCyte. "It's just open enough to take care of the final affairs, but for all intents and purposes it's closed down." Read more »

Following significant layoffs at Flagship Studios, new job listings posted by Korean publisher T3 Entertainment seem to indicate that the company has picked up Flagship's Hellgate: London and Mythos properties, Gamasutra reports.

"T3 Entertainment is searching for creative minds to passionately continue development of Hellgate: London and Mythos, along with other new games, which are being published by HanbitSoft Inc," the Read more »

With the fate of Hellgate: London (PC) uncertain following significant layoffs at developer Flagship and the halting of the game's subscription service, publisher Namco Bandai appears to be stepping in to continue support of the online action-RPG

"The game is up, the servers are not going away in the short term and any major changes to status will be communicated in advance," Namco Bandai senior business development director Zack Karlsson wrote on the game's official forum. Read more »

Flagship Studios today denied recent stories that is has closed, saying that it is still in business - though it did have to lay off most of its employees.
In a statement, CEO Bill Roper had this to say,

"It is with deep regret that I must announce that Flagship Studios has laid off most employees. However, the core management and founding team members are still at Flagship. The past five years have been an incredible experience for us, but unfortunately, we couldn't sustain the size of the company any longer." Read more »

Update: Flagship community manager Taylor Balbi has denied Voodoo Extreme's report that he confirmed the studio's closure.

"I didn't say this at all, and I have never spoken to [Andrew Burnes at Voodoo Extreme] or recall ever speaking to [Andrew Burnes at Voodoo Extreme] about anything ever," Balbi wrote on the company's forums. "I'm sorry, but this news article is just not from me." Read more »