Confusion mars ‘Hellgate’ release announcement

Although we are currently rejoicing at the joint announcement of Flagship Studios, Electronic Arts and Namco Bandai Games America Inc. that Hellgate: London, which is touted as the most-awaited massively multiplayer online game slash role-playing game slash first-person shooter, will be released this Halloween (locally known as Undas), we can’t help but notice the confusion brought about by news that the game is free to play … no, wait, it’s not. Or is it?

Never heard of the game? What planet are you from? Er, okay, here’s a short description:

Hellgate: London offers infinite re-playability with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies and events. The player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through an innumerable amount of demons to advance through a deep, rich story-driven campaign. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow each player to create his or her own unique hero.

What this doesn’t say is that the game is set in post-apocalyptic London in the year 2038 and that you’ll get the chance to play the role of a Knight Templar. Yes, the same Knight Templars who sacked Jerusalem in the Crusades.

But we’re straying from the topic here, so I have to bring you back to the confusion. Flagship Studios is offering would-be Hellgate: London players an “optional subscription service” that will give them access to additional content including but not limited to quests, characters, and equipment. So does that make the game pay-to-play? A hybrid, maybe?

In a move that probably made the situation worse, Flagship Studios chief executive officer Bill Roper released a statement to media justifying the subscription business model for the game while assuring potential Hellgate players that it will still be free to play. Here are exerpts from the statement as quoted by FPS Rantings and Kotaku:

“(Flagship Studios) will be providing everything from a secure client/server infrastructure to 24/7 customer support to maintaining a complete live team to provide not only balance and bug fixes, but more importantly, continuing, ongoing content updates to the game. And while we are still finalizing the commercial and game aspects of our online plans, we can tell players that there will definitely be significant free online play.”

So it’s free to play but we’ll need to pay for future patches of the game? We’re now wondering how the Philippine onling gaming market will react to Hellgate: London when it reaches our shores. Will IP e-Games, its local publisher, follow suit? We hope they have a better statement prepared.

For more information about the game, check out next month’s issue of GAME! Magazine or watch the video below.