Flagship Seattle

From Hellgatewiki.com

Flagship's Seattle office was announced on December 14, 2006, in a press release about their first game, Mythos.

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (December 14th, 2006) -- Flagship Studios today announced that it has expanded operations with the formation of a new development studio: Flagship Seattle. Flagship Studios is already one of the most respected independent videogame developers in North America. The creation of Flagship Seattle plays an integral part in the company's development plans.

The studio is led by Travis Baldree, Project Director. Baldree previously worked at Wild Tangent as the Lead Designer on the popular free-to-playrole-playing game Fate. Flagship Seattle has a diverse history of game development. Other team members have worked on titles including Total Annihilation, Dungeon Siege and SWAT 3.

Flagship Seattle is currently working on Mythos, an online role-playing game that will beused to test the networking technology behind the multiplayer component of the highly-anticipated action role-playing game Hellgate: London. Mythos will be digitally distributed by Flagship Studios subsidiary Ping0, LLC in North America and Europe in 2007. HanbitSoft, Flagship Studios’ partner in Ping0, will be responsible for distributing Mythos in Asia.

"We were very impressed with the work of Travis fromwhen we were first shown Wild Tangent's Fate at E3 2005", said Phil Shenk, Creative Director of Mythos and founding member of Flagship Studios. "Both he and the Flagship Seattle team have an exceptional pedigree in games development. Their skills and expertise make them real assets."

"To be involved in the formation of Flagship Seattle is an honor", said Travis Baldree, Project Director of Flagship Seattle. "We are sure that Mythos will put Flagship Seattle on the map, and in turn will become an integral part of the Flagship Studios experience".

Mythos was nearly complete when it was announced, so it had obviously been under development for some time before the announcement. It's not yet known how Flagship decided to acquire the game and the team creating it, but their reasoning seems clear. Flagship wants Ping0 to be a major game hosting and distributing hub, and while Mythos is not an AAA title, it's a real game, and certainly worthy of testing out the Ping0 service before Hellgate: London gets its turn later in 2007. It won't compete with HGL, but will complement it, and will turn Ping0 into more than a one-game service. The fact that the game was designed by outsiders, and was nearly completed before it was announced, is a bonus.

Flagship Seattle

Virtually nothing more is known about Flagship Seattle than was revealed in the initial press release. No company website exists, there are no lists of employees, and what, if anything, theyr'e doing other than Mythos is a secret. About Mythos we know a bit more, mostly since it's currently undergoing alpha testing, but thanks to the strict NDA all alpha testers much agree to, we can't say anything that hasn't already been made public. Which means we can't really say anything at all.

Diablo Parallels

The parallels to Diablo are worth a look. Erich Schaefer, Max Schaefer, and David Brevik designed and created Diablo before Blizzard had ever heard of the game, and Diablo was only acquired by Blizzard shortly before its release. (The game underwent a great deal of polishing and final development while a Blizzard property, so it wasn't as if Blizzard just slapped their name on the game and distributed it.) Diablo was the first game to use Blizzard's new online service, Battle.net, and was a huge success. Max, Erich, and David were asked to join the company, and founced Blizzard North, where they were lead designers on Diablo II, before eventually going their own way years later.