In yet another super weird twist of fate for the Hellgate: London intellectual property, Gamasutra is reporting that HanbitSoft is planning to take over the game once again, and is even working on an expansion!

Korean publisher and developer HanbitSoft has officially announced that it owns the IPs for Flagship Studios' Hellgate: London and Mythos and is actively working on a Hellgate expansion, despite the scheduled termination of Hellgate's servers by operator Namco Bandai.

Hellgate generally suffered from perceived quality issues and struggled to maintain a sufficient fanbase to continue operating, leading to Flagship's essential closing in July 2008.

In a letter posted on a HanbitSoft blog, they talk about the future of Mythos as well.

“Hellgate: London is now HanbitSoft’s game, and we have already formed a team. They are doing hard work for updates and patches. Service in Asia including Korea is in good hands” said Gi-Young Kim, CEO of HanbitSoft, and added “I believe Mythos is a very attractive MMORPG, just gaining large fans from couple of beta tests. It has a lot of potential and it will also be developed at studio in San Francisco with Hellgate: London. Both titles will be presented soon with upgraded features.”

I'm not going to take Mythos off my vaporware watch just yet, but I'll be excited to eat my words and login, if it ever comes to that!

While Hellgate London's servers will indeed be shutting down come end of January, until then, Namco will be supporting players free of charge by keeping the servers alive.

Santa Clara, Calif., (October 24, 2008) - NAMCO BANDAI Games America Inc., today announced that they will continue to support customers of PC game Hellgate™: London with online server support and play through January 31, 2009 despite the closure of Flagship Studios. In a further gesture of support, Namco Bandai Games will provide this server support free of charge to all fans and players of the game up until the shut down date.

NAMCO BANDAI Games appreciate the enthusiasm of all the Hellgate: London players and looks forward to providing them with future entertainment products.

I'm sure "gesture of support" will be appreciated by players bidding farewell to their game.

Amid reports of Flagship Studios - publisher of Hellgate: London - completely shutting down a few weeks back, it looked like the game could be doomed. However, word has been circulating over the past few days that suggest that Hellgate: London may indeed live on! Zack "Ozuri" Karlsson, Sr. Director, Business Development for Namco-Bandai Games America, has posted this on the Hellgate forums :

Hello Hellgaters,

I know everyone is looking for an announcement, and we'd love to make one -- but right now, many things are in flux and we don't have all the information yet. As soon as we do, we'll post here on the forums, on the website, and anywhere else we can find you.

In the short term, please do not worry. 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.

I'd like to ask for your patience as we try to figure it all out and chart a new course. We value your community, your commitment, and your passion for Hellgate and we will make sure that any solution that we architect will support all of you as best as we are able.

Thanks again. We hope to have a real announcement shortly.

It looks like Namco is stepping in to save Hellgate! We'll have more information as it becomes available.

We got this very exciting press release just moments ago.

Flagship Studios today announced that its action role-playing game Hellgate: London has become the most successful online video game launch in Korea of the past three years with over 1 million accounts registered within the first two weeks of its open beta test. Hellgate: London is the first online game in over three years to use a monthly subscription business model.

After launching the open beta on January 15th, Hellgate: London quickly rose to the ninth most played online game, fifth most popular RPG and most popular online beta game in PC Cafes*, with over 1 million accounts. Hellgate: London was released commercially on February 22nd, and achieved record sales in its first week of presales.

Congrats to Flagship Studios and the Hellgate: London team!

Big news for Hellgaters that love to frag alone!

Hellgaters fond of Hellgate: London's offline mode have long-awaited the release of this hefty update. Single Player Patch 1.2 brings the Single Player client up to date with Multiplayer Patch 1.2. It contains all of the fixes, tweaks, and rebalances of Patch 0.7, Patch 1.0, Patch 1.1, Patch 1.1b, and Patch 1.2.

A build of this patch is now available for voluntary beta testing. Please be sure to make copies of all Hellgate: London Single Player save files before installing this patch. The beta of this patch can be download here and the full patch notes can be found here .

Hellgate London has extended their beta grace period!

If you are still participating in the Hellgate: London beta, the grace period for playing the game without entering a retail registration key is almost up. On Wednesday, November 21, 2007, we will require that all accounts have a registration code in order to play.

To continue playing, you need to enter the registration key from your purchased copy of Hellgate: London into your existing account management page. You do not need to make a new account. You also do not need to be a subscriber to continue playing from where your characters are in-game. Simply log into your account and enter the retail registration key into the registration key field found on your account management page...

You can enter your registration code on the account management screen.