Hellgate: London to return

HanbitSoft has announced that they've acquired the publishing rights to the action/RPG Hellgate: London and plan on relaunching it in the future.

Originally made by Flagship Studios in 2007, the online version of the game was indefinitely suspended when the studio closed its doors. Now that HanbitSoft owns the rights, they plan on rolling out a launch of the game, now called Hellgate: Resurrection, overseas in 2010. The launch will start in China, Taiwan, and South East Asia followed by North America, Europe, and Japan.

"We would like to thank NAMCO BANDAI Games America for allowing us to acquire the Hellgate publishing rights and are thrilled to have eager gamers worldwide return and enjoy the franchise," said Kee-Young Kim, CEO of HanbitSoft. "Hellgate: Resurrection is heading towards success in Korea such that we decided to push ahead with launching the game overseas next year. We will do our best to get the game to the fans as soon as possible."

Right now, the new and improved Hellgate: Resurrection is available in Korea as a free-to-play model.

I remember taking part in the beta of Hellgate: London and playing after launch. The game had an interesting concept, I thought, and the old Diablo formula of run, kill, and loot is always fun, but it wasn't enough to overcome the game's numerous bugs and graphical ugliness. My friend and I played through it once, then never touched it again. So, it'll be interesting to see what HanbitSoft does with the game when it comes to western shores sometime this year.