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An archived Hellgate: London feature. See the Hellgate Archives for more.

Feature: Play.TM preview
Date: April 4, 2007
Source: Play.TM.

Play.TM Preview

Opening soon in a major city near you - Hellgate: London. For anyone who has not yet caught the trailers doing the post E3 rounds, this is the next big thing in the RPG field and the long awaited fix for all the Diablo junkies who never kicked the habit.

For an indication of how popular Diablo II: Lords of Destruction still is, and how much Blizzard's RPG masterpiece is still played - despite being released back in June 2001 - it remains the 7th most requested game on Gamefaqs.com. Obviously a new title will want to make its own distinctive mark, but fans can't help but be excited by this games progenitors and pedigree.

Hellgate: London is not actually published by Blizzard, but instead by the new Flagship Studios. The bulk of the talent there is however ex-Blizzard - most importantly Erich Schafer and Kenneth Williams, the creator and the producer of, you guessed it, Diablo.

So it's something old and something new that we should be looking forward to, which is sort of the theme of the game itself. Excuse me whilst I blast through this crate of cheap scotch and Marlboro Reds. Okay - in my new gravelly voice I read the intro...

The once great city lies in ruins. A massive gash in the fabric of reality gnarls and churns, dominating the horizon as it blends into a permanently darkened sky. The unspeakable cataclysm that befell London threatens to engulf the world as the shadow of the daemons fell across the face of mankind.

Apparently we have all been very negligent and ignoring 'the omens' and enjoying our cushy modern lives, rather than sharpening the pointy sticks for the inevitable daemon invasion. Early 2038 sees the whole of humanity getting caught with its collective pants down and eaten in fairly short order, except for the secret societies of holy warriors who actually were busy with the stick-sharpening. It is up to you as one of these anointed fighters to close the Hellgate and save the small pockets of humanity remaining by way of an FPS/RPG adventure.

This premise is more than just a fine sci-fi fantasy plot; it is also a fine set-up for some very interesting game features and locations. The action will all take place within the first two zones of the London Underground system, which is just packed full of recognizable landmarks. Hellgate could just as easily be set on Mars or Phobos, or in the distant future, but Flagship has realized that scenes of apocalyptic destruction are far more eerie if you recognize what the place used to be. 28 Days Later was a lot creepier than Doom for any number of reasons, but at least one was the familiarity of the set that the zombie-types were running around in. The rolling demos and screenshots show locations like Covent Garden, Bloomsbury, and the British Museum beautifully realized as thoroughly burnt and chewed upon wrecks, filled with all matter of unholy fiend.

Not all of London is overrun however, and it is all thanks to the London Underground. What is that you say? You thought the Underground was a totally lunatic bunch of tunnels designed after a particularly large bottle of Absinthe? That half the services appear of no use to man or beast and were picked out of a hat by a Victorian eccentric? Well, so did I - but it turns out Flagship knows the truth of it.

Freemasons.

Ahhh - you see now? Of course! When you think about it, it's blindingly obvious.

The London Underground was actually designed by occultist freemasons who blessed all the concrete with alchemical formulas mixed in to actually serve as shelters and bunkers in the coming demonic invasion. This, it turns out, is why Covent Garden station only has two tiny lifts rather than an escalator to service one of London's busiest destinations. It's not bloody inconvenient after all - it's actually a defensive feature. These tunnels are the human resistance's highways, and the stations their settlements. The daemons are however slowly encroaching, and apparently an arch-fiend set up his torture chamber somewhere on the Northern Line. I'd check Camden first, if I were them.

My only problem with this pretty interesting concept is with the later built London Underground stations. Why did no one bless and defend outside of tube Zone 1? I can picture the scene back in 1910:

Grand Poobah of the Masons: Behold! Our work is done. We have ensured that our future generations will be able to resist the terrible tide of evil that the omens have foretold. With this a chance remains - a slim chance indeed, but the fire of hope and human determination burn eternal! We must persevere.

Apprentice: But Master - what about the extensions to the Circle and District line due next week?

Grand Poobah: Well, screw them - they live in the suburbs.

The near future setting with occultism and daemons thrown in makes for a very tasty array of weapons, armor and kit, as well as some significantly less savory looking opponents. Gameplay through both the set-piece and randomized areas can be done in either FPS or 3rd person view, and as any experienced gamer will tell you, those are the angles of choice for either the gunman or the blade aficionado respectively. Both styles are widely accommodated for, with Hellgate's diabolic heritage beginning to show itself in the weapons selections and the skill trees.

Those rare and lucky few that have got their hands on a functional build of Hellgate have said that the combat may look like Gears of War, but it is still at heart an RPG as stats and skill choice play a bigger part than headshots or circle-strafe. The class and skill system seems to be undergoing major tweaks with every build that gets previewed, but so far at least 2 Classes and 3 Specializations have been confirmed.

The standard Tank / Barbarian class will be the Templar Crusader - a giant of a fighter, wearing a good couple of tons of powered holy armor. The melee weapons will always be in season with these bruisers, and 'subtlety' generally considered a dirty word. So far sub-classes have included the Blademaster who will nearly completely eschew the inelegance of the gun, the Guardian which RPG fans will recognize as a traditional Paladin class in a new hat.

The Cabalist class will be the masters of magic, and will sit comfortably with those that tended towards spell caster classes. These individuals are a long way from Gandalf's pipe and slippers, however, and have gained their mojo from harnessing dark energies and incorporating demonic artifacts into their own bodies. Aside from looking jolly scary, Cabalists can fling around the fireballs, turn the tables by enslaving and possessing daemons, and even become demonic themselves by taking on the shape and aspect of terrible berserkers. As Dr. Banner once said - You won't like me when I'm angry.

The final major class seems to be the Hunters cough *Archer* cough class: ex-government wetworkers who think bringing a sword to a gunfight is a bad idea and all the magic stuff is a bit new-agey. They will get the best results from the vast array of projectile weapons that can be wielded, all but the largest of which come in a two-gun combo flavor. Gamers who prefer ranged weapons or the assassin classes will know where to come.

The old Diablo games had such replayability in part due to each class playing so differently. The same looks to be true of Hellgate, as each sub-class will have a full set of over 26 skills in separate tree systems. The mission and development options will also be instantly familiar to Diablo fans, with safe-zone settlements providing collections of both traders and NPC's to collect side and main missions. As usual, the boy-scouts who clean up every mission and assist every old lady who lost their cat will ultimately have the most skill points to splash about.

In to these well trained hands can be put a fine range of twentysomthing blessed steel blades and cannons. This number can at first blush seem pretty small, with RPG games such as Oblivion boasting a several times larger armory. The designers, however, have apparently spent a great deal of time and hair-pulling making each of these weapons handle so differently that the style of play will be more diverse than games that have larger armories but only difference is damage point or two.

The execution of this detail could be the difference between success and failure for the title. The rolling demo of weapons testing is perhaps one of the less exciting aspects for the veteran gamer, as much of what is on offer has been seen before. The arsenal consists of old favorites with arcane twists upon them - flame throwers use alchemical Greek Fire instead of napalm, rifles magnetically launch blessed Palladium slugs, and a fairly familiar looking lightening cannon chains damage between enemies. Some of the weapons seem to have come straight out of The Big Book of FPS Guns - the lightning cannon for instance, as well as a Sludge Gun nearly straight-lifted from Unreal, and a 3-warhead rocket launcher from... well, nearly every FPS on the market. Furthermore the projectile effects for 80% of the guns seem to be fairly pedestrian different colored balls of light. This could be an area for improvement, but there is hope with the inclusion of an anointed and power-enhanced Cricket Bat for knocking Johnny Demon for six.

Both melee and ranged weapons will get a much greater involvement and lease of life with the extensive upgrade slot system. Flagship Studios know it is twice as satisfying to slay the enemy with a weapon you customized yourself, and maybe even give a name to. Each weapon type will have multiple slots to be upgraded in certain ways. Swords will have additional Power, Relic or Arcane slots where plundered modules can be slapped in, whereas Rocket Launchers are going to have upgrades such as Range, Clip, Fuel, etc. One of Hellgate's most attractive features is that each possible combo will make the weapon look and handle differently, making much custom fun available.

It has also been made clear that these modules can be swapped in and out - saving the gamer making agonizing choices about spending precious, precious modules. On the other hand, some sort of penalty would be actually welcome, otherwise the gamer will likely spend 20 minutes of his gaming hour constantly swapping in and out modules every time they switch weapons.

Multiplayer details are as yet hazy, which is partially due to the scale and complexity of the game. Diablo even in its latter incarnations was an isometric 4-way scrolling pen-and-paper evolution, whereas Hellgate: London with its FPS elements, customizable weapon trees, and randomized maps is a lot tougher prospect to balance appropriately. The studio's comments seem to be either 'no comment' or 'watch this space'. Again, the mechanic looks to be essentially the same as its progenitors, with multiplay being essentially the same as singleplayer, with squad buddies collected in the safe-zones.

Many aspects may have been carried over from the Blizzard days, some admirable, some maybe less so. One traditional feature that fans of the old titles will be very pleased to see maintained is the truly fantastic intro and cut-sequences. If you have not already checked out the Hellgate: London intro, go and do it right now - it features most of the classes and completely blows the Warhammer intro out of the water.

And of course there's the tradition of release dates - that's been proudly brought over from the Blizzard labs as well. 'It will be ready when it's ready' comes the familiar refrain, and release dates have been moved backwards and forwards so much that they are by now meaningless beyond 'sometime this year'.

This is unquestionably one of the most promising titles this year, and if Flagship pulls it off it may have just as much legs as its great progenitor. After watching the intro movie you too will be excited enough to not only have this on order, but whatever expansions will follow it. Hellgate: Vegas anyone?