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Demons

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Shulgoth grins.
Shulgoth grins.
All the powerful skills and weapons in the world aren't much good without something to use them on. Fortunately for the pugnacious Hellgate: Londoner, there are demons aplenty roaming the streets, clogging the tubes, filling the skies, and just generally getting into everything. They must be destroyed, and your name is Vengeance. Seek yourself, and the peace that only destruction can bring.

Contents

Monster Variety

There will be a lot of different types of monsters in Hellgate: London, forcing players to vary their strategies by the situation. Flagship doesn't want this game to be as easy as Diablo II was, where one great weapon and/or skill was often enough to clear several levels in a row.

"We don't have a final opponent count, but there will be somewhere over 50 different types of demons to fight. And, like we usually do, we'll take those base types and expand them into many varieties with different stats, abilities, textures and effects.

"Our main consideration in designing monsters is making them unique, and ideally, forcing the players to change their gameplay to adapt to their uniqueness. So, we like to contrast Ravagers that jump attack with Imps that fire missiles and Dark Seraphs that spawn right next to you in an explosive column of fire. We try to create a good mix of flyers, runners, melee types and shooters, peppered with mini-bosses that buff or command the lesser monsters."
--Erich Schaefer, July 2006, RPG Vault interview.

Demon Classification

There are four "castes" of demons in Hellgate: London: Primus, Spectrals, Necros, and Beasts. The names have changed slightly during development, but the concepts are the same (from PC Gamer, May 2005):

Beasts
A catch-all classification for anything that scuttles, scampers, slithers, or soars, and licks its own privates in polite company.
Necros
Have the stench of death about them however many fragrant cardboard fir trees you hang on their withered, stick-brittle limbs.
Primus
Are at the peak of the predator pyramid and may actually exchange a few unpleasantries with you just before they snuff your life spark.
Spectrals
A mysterious genus of ethereal vagrants unable to dwell permanently on this physical plane.


"True Demons" became "Primus," which is probably a better name anyway, especially when you consider that all demons are further divided into Greater Demons and Lesser Demons. One of the Greater Demons revealed by Flagship is Shulgoth who is a Primus. (We know of a few others.) There will be Greater Demons in all four castes in the final game, and they seem to be roughly equivalent to the Super Unique boss monsters in Diablo II. Greater Demons are always found in the same area, they have much higher stats than regular monsters or even boss monsters, they are usually tied to a quest, and they drop multiple items upon death.

In addition to greater demons, there are tons of randomly-occuring boss monsters, and other semi-bosses who are roughly equivalent to the packs of "champion" monsters found in Diablo II.


Primus

Reaper.
Reaper.
Also called True Demons, these are the organized beings that command the lesser castes and are the primary cause of the apocalypse. Mostly humanoid in form, they often use weapons and equipment in their vile pursuits, and some have even been seen using human-created technology, although they tend to favor devices of their own fabrication. Their intelligence, use of weaponry, and the ability to attack from both range or in hand-to-hand combat make them a dangerous and unpredictable enemy. Demons also wear armor that is commonly resistant to traditionally infernal types of damage, such as fire and employ mystic shields to safeguard them against more temporal forms of damage.

Primus Type Demons

Spectral

Spectral fury.
Spectral fury.
These are semi-corporeal beings with powerful magical abilities at their disposal. They exist, at least partially, on an alternate and parallel realm of existence known as the Spectral plane, making them difficult to fight using normal physical means. Spectral demons are visually the strangest and most shocking creatures encountered by the survivors of the Burn, and some even have hidden forms that can only be seen by adventurers with a means to peer into their unearthly realm. Their Spectral power sometimes manifests itself in our world as a form of electricity, and attacks based in similar energy spectrums have been found to be highly effective.

Necros

Zombie Bruiser stands tall.
Zombie Bruiser stands tall.
This caste includes both the undead and the demons that create and command them. Necros often swarm in semi-organized packs, using strength of numbers to overcome the limitations of their commonly weakened and decayed forms. Although usually simple to knock down, some may rise again unless appropriate measures are taken. Their masters are more powerful, and eliminating their commanding presence should be of the highest priority when encountering them. Creatures within the Necros caste commonly use attacks that pierce the flesh, poison the blood and corrupt the soul. It is important to note that they are particularly resistant to these same sorts of attacks.

Beasts

Fetid Hulk.
Fetid Hulk.
Beasts are the lower forms of life in Hell. They are the naturally occurring fauna of the Underworld, made evil by their surroundings and their masters. True Demons see them as fodder to subjugate, abuse, brand, armor and train for battle. Beasts are unintelligent and commonly oriented towards melee combat, attacking with fangs and claws. While susceptible to most types of damage, Beasts of greater power and age can be extremely large and strong, a few reportedly towering over city buildings. Some of these creatures also employ attacks representative of their infernal origins, unleashing corrosive, poisonous or fiery effects on their unlucky targets. In terms of natural defenses, the more brutish varieties have thick, armored hides while their smaller, wiry kin rely on their agility to avoid attacks.

Unknown Demons

Besides the named, confirmed demons, there are a fair number of others in concept art or even screenshots that we don't know enough about to classify. Most of these will turn up once there's more game info released, but some likely never got off the drawing board, and will never turn up in the game at all.

Boss Monsters

Boss Diabolist.
Boss Diabolist.
In addition to the unique Greater Demon bosses, there are countless randomly-spawned boss monsters through Hellgate: London, and when you face one, you'll know it. Like bosses in Diablo II, Hellgate: London's boss monsters are a different color, but they are also a much larger than normal monsters of their type, often towering high above your character's head.

Besides being taller, bosses spawn with a protective cluster of minions, and will usually have greater speed and strength than normal monsters of their type. It's not yet known how bosses will be handled on higher difficulty levels. They may gain random bonus properties, the way bosses did in Diablo II, or there might be something else to make them that much harder.

In addition to bosses, there are Champion type monsters to be found in Hellgate: London. These creatures are tougher than regular monsters, but not as tough or distinctive as bosses, and they seem to spawn in groups, but without minions. All of this is subject to change during play testing before release, of course, and it's quite likely it will, if only to make Hellgate: London different than Diablo II, which it closely apes when it comes to type and variety of boss monsters.

Monster AI

The monsters we've seen so far in gameplay movies and killed during play times are not smart. Ivan Sulic repeated stressed that their AI was nowhere near functional during development, but that they would be smarter in the final game. Some players have said that monsters don't need a great deal of intelligence in a fast-paced action game like Hellgate: London. To that Ivan replied:

"While this is basically true, I don't believe it's something we would willingly want to use to justify the lack of solid AI in our game. Monsters should do things that are interesting. Having them saunter forward mindlessly because that's what games of the type have done for years seems like kind of a copout. Admittedly, this is pretty much what they do right now. They're basically stupid as rocks. But again, we're working hard on fixing that and implementing new routines every single day. Our game won't be FEAR or Halo or whatever, but it'll be better than nothing, for sure."
--Ivan Sulic, July 2006

Not all monsters are stupid, and not all monsters are melee fighters. Some snipe from a distance, some fly and attack from above, others leap and scurry away, and there are shamans that ensorcel their fellow demons into madness, invulnerability, or to enrich themselves. Expect a wide variety of monster behavior in the dungeons of Hellgate: London.

"One thing I noticed that may be of interest to some people is mob activation. With the 3D perspective, you can see way into the distance (level geometry permitting) to see what monsters are around, however monsters do not become active until you get fairly close (or start shooting at them). This should allow for a more strategic style of play, similar to that found in Diablo 1, where you cautiously could activate certain monsters in small groups in order to tackle them, compared to the Diablo 2 style where if a monster is on screen, it generally is already running at you. This could all potentially change, due to improvements in monster AI, but I would imagine it will stay this way to at least some degree."
--Lanthanide, September 2006, Game Play Report

Monster Physics

The demons in Hellgate: London look realistic (for creatures of fantasy), and they move believably. Demons walk and their legs move with their bodies, clipping isn't a common problem, flying creatures flap their wings, running monsters legs move more quickly, and so forth. They are not, however, completely realistic. You can't aim at body parts or intentionally cut off a demon's arm to make it fight you with one hand.

Bill Roper: "We don't have any special damage points implemented, although we've thrown the idea around the office, perhaps tying them to specific weapons. We are building an RPG that FPS gamers find very accessible since it looks and feels in many ways like the games they usually play. We want your success in the game to be tied to how well you've built up your character and the strategic choices you make in battle. We do realize that FPS players have some things they really want from games, and if there was a simple way we could appeal to that in some ways without making it unbalanced for the core RPG players, we'll give it serious consideration.

"As for disabling enemies with hamstrings or limb removal, it's something that is really cool that we probably just won't have time to implement. We've got a huge list of incredible game play elements in the pipeline and we simply can't do them all. However, we do intend to extensively support Hellgate: London after it launches, so we like to believe anything is eventually possible."
--Bill Roper, Fansite Interview, Fall 2005

Compromises between perfect reality and development time and type of game have to be made, and that sort of stuff didn't make it into Hellgate: London. That's not to say you won't see dismembered monsters, though:

Headless Blood Zombie.
Headless Blood Zombie.
"We have all kinds of blood and exploding monsters and stuff. We even have a Blood Zombie. You can blow its arms, head and upper body apart. And then, even as it's squirting blood everywhere, it will still try and kick you to death. What we do not have is a system whereby a player can selectively cut a monster and the realistically watch it bleed to death. We do, however, have sustained damage effects. So, a monster that is on fire or poisoned or being electrocuted will eventually die even if you don't continually shoot it with new pain inflicting goodness."
--Ivan Sulic, July 2006

Several gameplay movies show zombies getting their heads blown off, or even their entire upper torsos, and still coming at you. This is not an uncommon event; in your first play session you will most likely see a pair of legs come running after you, or a zombie not slowed at all by the loss of a head. You just have to keep on shooting or chopping at what's left of the demon until it finally lays down and dies.

Demonic Hierarchy and Mythology

The full story of the demonic horde and their origins and ultimate purpose is an interesting mythology. See the Story page for full details about the Demonic Cosmology of Hellgate: London.

The demons seen in Hellgate: London are the lowest of the low, common warriors of every time. High, high above them are the Dark Wills, master demons who mercilessly drive their underlings while overseeing invasions across worlds. Above the Dark Wills are the Eldest, demons of even greater renown and power. Above all sits The First, a black source of unspeakable power. The First is evil incarnate, "the opposite of all that is good and the end of all beginnings." The First grows in might as the demons destroy life, and His strength fuels the demons in their destruction.

It seems unlikely that any human in Hellgate: London will fight her way even far enough to battle a Dark Will, much less one of the Eldest. The First itself is unimaginable; a man might as well attack the Earth with a shovel as challenge The First.

Much more of the overall plot and the origin of the demons will be revealed in the game, and associated materials such as the game manual and the HGL novels.

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