From Hellgatewiki.com

Shields are physical and magical in Hellgate: London. All characters and most higher level monsters have a magical shield of some sort. More on that on our Character page. Armor shields are different -- they're actual hunks of metal that protect the player using them from attack. At this point, only Templar Guardians can equip shields. The option of using a shield may be added to other classes, post-release.

Shield Variety

Shields are like most other types of items in Hellgate: London. There are lots of them, of all different qualities and requirements, and which one to use will depend on your character's other stats. Three types of shields have been revealed, as of May 2007, though we don't know much more than what they look like, at this point.

• Dominion Shield
• Imperial Shield
• Scarab Shield

Shields During Development

After teasing us with some of the best concept art in the game, Flagship spent most of 2005 and early 2006 explaining why shields were not going to be in Hellgate: London.

"The shields in the game are magical in nature, an incantation of protection the Templar can cast about themselves. We've gone back and forth on how this protection is represented in beyond the graphical effect that surrounds the character, and the yellow bar is just one of those passes. There will also be different types of these arcane shields to protect against different sorts of damage, so we'll keep working on the best way to make it clear to players what the shield is defending them against as well as how effective it is.

As for traditional shields, some of the early concept work did indeed feature them. Is this something you'd like your Templar to have? Maybe a poll amongst your readers would be some great feedback to pass to the design team!
--Bill Roper, Fansite Interview, February 22, 2006

It seemed silly to remove shields, so long as Templars were using swords. Just about every human culture has used shields at some point during the pre-gun era, and we weren't doing it for fun, we were doing it because they were very effective in combat. Of course Templars would use shields while fighting Demons in Hellgate: London; they'd be tearing the doors off of old cars if that was the only way they could find a large, smooth piece of metal to use to turn attacks aside.

In any event, votes were duly conducted after Bill Roper's suggestion, and there's no telling, but perhaps the overwhelming majority of fans who wanted shields helped sway Flagship. Whatever the reason, it wasn't long afterwards that Flagship announced that shields were back in the game. This was confirmed at E3 2006 in May, when shields were seen and played with, and they've remained in the game ever since, and feature in numerous recent screenshots. See every screenshot with a shield.

Shield Appearance

Shields feature in a lot of the best character concept art. Whether or not the shields in the game look anywhere near as cool is unknown, since so few of them have actually been seen in screenshots. We can always hope, though.

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Shield Navigation
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