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I recently (and finally!) picked up a new/sealed Collector’s Edition copy of Hellgate: London (The Original October 31, 2007 Release). Primarily because I want to play HGL and analyze it from a Blizzard North historical perspective, but also because it is the perfect complement for my Diablo 1 / Diablo 2 Collection, and also because the HGL CE includes the Bonus Disk that has the \"Making of HGL\" content (I believe this is just part of that content) which I’m very interesting in watching in full (It also includes the official soundtrack ;D). I knew about HGL for a long time but never truly played it (Maybe for like 20 minutes back when I was in High School, or early college). I’m planning on playing HGL 2007 (As released and patched by Flagship Studios on Single Player), I’m not really planning on playing any modded version such as 2038, Revival, or the Hanbisoft version of HGL that’s on Steam or that includes HGL: Tokyo (I’ve actually heard good things about 2038 specifically, especially regarding Multiplayer, but I’m just interesting in only what the Blizzard North folks did with HGL and only on Offline Single Player).
Given what we know about Blizzard North, its developers/leadership, and their Exodus, we knew that those same people for the most part all went to form Flagship Studios and specifically developed Hellgate: London to be a Diablo-like game but with a FPS aspect to it, aka a looter-shooter before the genre even existed (Borderlands). However from some research I’ve done, an interesting observation Indigo Gaming made was that HGL is primarily a hack/slash, rogue-like (Diablo) game but displayed in a shooter package, where as games like Borderlands, are primarily a shooter game that has some RPG elements incorporated within them, thus the pacing of the game and the feel are different. This is primarily because Borderlands was developed by Gearbox Software, which had a long history of specifically developing shooter games such as many of the Half-Life Expansions (Opposing Force, Blue Shift, CS: CZ) and Brother in Arms to name a few. On the other hand, HGL was developed by Blizzard North coming from Diablo 1 / Diablo 2.
Due to this, I think it’s extremely critical (and fun) to play and analyze Hellgate: London (2007) as we will be able to further capture the ideas of what the core members of Blizzard North were thinking about after they left Blizzard North during that time period (2003, D2 Patch 1.10) and see in what direction they were going / went in (2003 - 2008). Analyzing Diablo 1 and Hellgate: London (And any other work Flagship Studios worked on) gives us greater context into Diablo II and all of its patches between 1.00 - 1.10. After all, the Blizzard North Core Members were all working together as a unit since 1993, as Condor, eventually moved to become Blizzard North after Blizzard (Silicon & Synapse) bought Condor, and Condor essentially continued as Flagship Studios.
One thing I already realized was that Hellgate: London’s Skill Trees already had synergies, so definitely the D2 Patch 1.10 decision to introduce synergies into the game continued to be included in HGL. This also makes sense given that after Peter Hu stayed behind to finish D2 Patch 1.10 (Which introduced synergies) he left Blizzard North as well and went to Flagship Studios to work on Hellgate: London
.
On another note, I also picked up FATE and will be playing that as well (My brother actually really liked FATE, I never played it but I believe I saw him playing it before haha). FATE was developed by Travis Baldree, which after 2005, left WildTangent to join Flagship Studios: Seattle where he was primarily focused on developing Mythos, which was similar to Diablo 1 / Diablo 2.
After Flagships Studios declared bankruptcy, Max Schaefer mentioned on August 15, 2008, that the studio \"for all intents and purposes\" had shutdown, the Flagship Studios HQ (In San Francisco) and Flagship Studios: Seattle teams both eventually closed and some went to form Runic Games (Travis Baldree, Max & Erich Schaefer, and Peter Hu) which made Torchlight 1, 2, and Hob. David Brevik went on to make Marvel Heroes at Gazillion Entertainment, and eventually made It Lurks Below through his own company, Greybeard Studios, and alternatively (in 2020) started a game publishing company called Skystone Games with Bill Wang (A former employee of Perfect World Entertainment). After Runic Games also shut down, Travis Baldree and Erich Schaefer formed Double Damage Games and made Rebel Galaxy and Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. Max Schaefer went on to Echtra Games and made Torchlight III. I still and always continue to wish the best to all of these fine individuals wherever their adventures may lead
.
Lastly, you can also consider this post as a small continuation of historical documentation of the Singling Documentation ending at Patch 1.10.
Hellgate: London
View attachment 5
View attachment 4
FATE
Given what we know about Blizzard North, its developers/leadership, and their Exodus, we knew that those same people for the most part all went to form Flagship Studios and specifically developed Hellgate: London to be a Diablo-like game but with a FPS aspect to it, aka a looter-shooter before the genre even existed (Borderlands). However from some research I’ve done, an interesting observation Indigo Gaming made was that HGL is primarily a hack/slash, rogue-like (Diablo) game but displayed in a shooter package, where as games like Borderlands, are primarily a shooter game that has some RPG elements incorporated within them, thus the pacing of the game and the feel are different. This is primarily because Borderlands was developed by Gearbox Software, which had a long history of specifically developing shooter games such as many of the Half-Life Expansions (Opposing Force, Blue Shift, CS: CZ) and Brother in Arms to name a few. On the other hand, HGL was developed by Blizzard North coming from Diablo 1 / Diablo 2.
Due to this, I think it’s extremely critical (and fun) to play and analyze Hellgate: London (2007) as we will be able to further capture the ideas of what the core members of Blizzard North were thinking about after they left Blizzard North during that time period (2003, D2 Patch 1.10) and see in what direction they were going / went in (2003 - 2008). Analyzing Diablo 1 and Hellgate: London (And any other work Flagship Studios worked on) gives us greater context into Diablo II and all of its patches between 1.00 - 1.10. After all, the Blizzard North Core Members were all working together as a unit since 1993, as Condor, eventually moved to become Blizzard North after Blizzard (Silicon & Synapse) bought Condor, and Condor essentially continued as Flagship Studios.
One thing I already realized was that Hellgate: London’s Skill Trees already had synergies, so definitely the D2 Patch 1.10 decision to introduce synergies into the game continued to be included in HGL. This also makes sense given that after Peter Hu stayed behind to finish D2 Patch 1.10 (Which introduced synergies) he left Blizzard North as well and went to Flagship Studios to work on Hellgate: London
.On another note, I also picked up FATE and will be playing that as well (My brother actually really liked FATE, I never played it but I believe I saw him playing it before haha). FATE was developed by Travis Baldree, which after 2005, left WildTangent to join Flagship Studios: Seattle where he was primarily focused on developing Mythos, which was similar to Diablo 1 / Diablo 2.
After Flagships Studios declared bankruptcy, Max Schaefer mentioned on August 15, 2008, that the studio \"for all intents and purposes\" had shutdown, the Flagship Studios HQ (In San Francisco) and Flagship Studios: Seattle teams both eventually closed and some went to form Runic Games (Travis Baldree, Max & Erich Schaefer, and Peter Hu) which made Torchlight 1, 2, and Hob. David Brevik went on to make Marvel Heroes at Gazillion Entertainment, and eventually made It Lurks Below through his own company, Greybeard Studios, and alternatively (in 2020) started a game publishing company called Skystone Games with Bill Wang (A former employee of Perfect World Entertainment). After Runic Games also shut down, Travis Baldree and Erich Schaefer formed Double Damage Games and made Rebel Galaxy and Rebel Galaxy Outlaw. Max Schaefer went on to Echtra Games and made Torchlight III. I still and always continue to wish the best to all of these fine individuals wherever their adventures may lead
.Lastly, you can also consider this post as a small continuation of historical documentation of the Singling Documentation ending at Patch 1.10.
Hellgate: London
View attachment 5
View attachment 4
FATE