Following the demise of Flagship Studios, the creator of Hellgate: London, industry veteran Bill Roper has joined Cryptic Studios.

He will now serve as Design Director on Champions Online, the studio’s upcoming MMO superhero title.

"Bill brings a ton of creative energy to the Cryptic office and we’re thrilled to have him join our team,” said Cryptic Studios CEO John Needham. “His years of gaming and online experience are huge assets to all of our projects, and Bill will assist us in furthering our studio’s vision to create innovative, exciting MMO gameplay.”

Brand new content and a new zone for Flagship Studio’s upcoming free MMORPG Mythos have been announced today. The expansion to the closed beta program will see the introduction of a new zone, Bloodbristle Heath, and the outpost town of Tulin’s Hope. They will roughly double the size of Mythos’ universe and will also add new levels, monsters, quests, items and skills. Gamers are invited to apply for the closed beta here.

The game is in development at Flagship Seattle, a subsidiary of Flagship Studios, which has just completed Hellgate: London. Mythos offers players three races - human, satyr, or gremlins - to play out in a fantasy world. The game, once released, will be free to download and play.

A second London Tube Tour video from Hellgate: London is now available. This one shows off the Charing Cross Station section from the game.

As the game nears release, Flagship Studios sent out word that renowned video game composers Cris Velasco and Sascha Dikiciyan have created the original soundtrack for Hellgate: London. It will be available within the game’s collector’s edition, which will be released alongside the standard edition on October 31.

Two new Hellgate: London videos have been released, showing off some major gameplay from the upcoming action-RPG. The embedded video below shows off the Covent Garden Underground Station level, which includes a boss battle. I haven’t hosted the other video, which is a Quest Design document demonstrating two in-game quests, but it can be found on Gametrailers.

This Hellgate: London pre-order benefits page drops word that preorders for the game would include a “Founders Club” lifetime subscription offer. It’s a $149.99 price tag for those interested to savor the game’s premium multiplayer features for life, though it notes that the lifetime offer is valid for the span of the game, rather than that of the player. Interestingly, this span is completely undetermined, as it can be “cancelled at any time, without any refunds or other compensation to the user.”

The offer is valid until November 30, after which it will no longer be available.

Bringing voice chat to its upcoming action-RPG, Flagship Studios announced that it will integrate Xfire’s peer-to-peer communication system in Hellgate: London, allowing players to easily communicate and strategize with each other. Additionally, players will be able to login to Xfire from within the game and easily add their friends and other gamers into a voice chat room, talking away as they play.

Founded by the creators of the Diablo series, Flagship is staying on the beaten path with Hellgate: London, which plays a lot like Diablo. The game is set in post-apocalyptic London, letting players loose on demons with over 100 magical and sci-fi weapons. It makes useof “random generation”, allowing players countless hours of replayability. The game will be out soon.

Word comes from Leipzig that Flagship Studios has announced the pricing structure for the premium multiplayer component for Hellgate: London in Europe.

The game will come with both standard and subscription multiplayer accounts, the former of which is free. Those who wish to have the ability to play co-operatively with thousands of other players, trade items, join guilds and enjoy other benefits including voice chat and buddy lists will have to dish out €9.99/£6.99 per month. Subscribers will also get new game modes, new character classes, areas, monsters, items and raid content.

Hellgate: London is set for release in Europe on November 2.

The studio behind the upcoming action-RPG Hellgate: London has expanded itself with the formation of a new development studio: Flagship Seattle. With that they also announced the studio’s first game: Mythos, an online RPG that will be used to test the networking technology behind the multiplayer component of Hellgate: London. Mythos will be digitally distributed globally sometime next year.

Flagship Seattle is being led by Travis Baldree, who previously worked at Wild Tangent as the Lead Designer on the popular free-to-play game Fate. Other members of the studio have worked on a range of titles including Dungeon Siege, Total Annihilation and SWAT 3.

Word comes from EA that it will collaborate with Namco Bandai on publishing the upcoming FPS-RPG Hellgate: London. EA will publish the game, with Namco Bandai continuing to oversee the development of the title. It will also retain rights to publish expansions or sequels to the Flagship Studios title.

Flagship Studios has announced a joint venture with Ping0 which will manage all aspects of hosting online games for Hellgate: London, the studio’s upcoming highly anticipated RPG.

“Supporting Hellgate: London is just the beginning for Ping0,” said Bill Roper, CEO and co-founder of Flagship Studios. “We fully expect Ping0 to both handle the online components and digitally distribute all of Flagship’s future titles. The company will also provide publishers and developers that want to bring their games online with a solution proven by one of the most highly anticipated titles in the industry.”

During E3 NVidia announced that Hellgate: London, Flagship Studios’ debut title, will include support for Havok FX physics and Microsoft’s ShaderModel 3.0, making it one of the industry’s first DirectX 10 games.

Hellgate: London combines the action of FPS games with the infinite replayability of dynamically generated levels, items, enemies and events. Players create a heroic character, completes quests and battles through hordes of demons (gates to hell have been opened… again) to advanced through experience levels and branching skill paths.

Namco Bandai will be publishing the game when it’s done.

If you’e feeling rather hot and bothered, head out to Hellgate Guru, who has posted the full, high-res version of the Avalon model featured topless in a recent Playboy issue. A “work-safe” teaser has been posted on the right; you’ll need to register to gain access to the full view.

The model is from Hellgate: London, an upcoming FPS/RPG hybrid from Flagship Studios. Further information can be found on the studio’s website and on the game’s official website.