The Hunters

Hardened well before the Demons came, Hunters are highly trained ex-military operatives who have been through almost every war-like scenario imaginable. Cold and calculating in the field, they utilize hyper-advanced technology that makes them especially effective from long ranges. Hunters never surrender.

Marksmen

These long-range specialists know their weaponry and are highly adaptable, ensuring they are inflicting the most damage in any situation. Marksmen get boosts when scoring critical damage hits, including self-buffs, homing bullets and even reflecting bullets.

They play best with others by staying back behind the first and second lines of offence, picking off unsuspecting enemies with ease.

Engineer

Technologically savvy, Engineers apply their knowledge of the latest theoretical science to build bots and weapons. Unlike the Summoner, who is always summoning something new again and again, the Engineer focuses on fewer drones and bots, improving them with skills and equipment as time goes on. Engineers play best with others by tricking their drone out with mods that do damage, take damage and heal. He is definitely an all-purpose adventurer.

The game is set to encourage mods - what can we hope to see from player and official add-ons?

Providing ongoing content to our players is a top priority for us, so you can expect to see quite a bit come out from Flagship Studios after the game launches. Our play model is designed as a secure, client/server space. This means that we really can't allow players to modify that game code, just as games like EverQuest or don't let you mod that portion of their games. We do have a single-player component for Hellgate: London and, just as we saw with the titles, we're sure people will come up with some very creative things in that regard, as well as create interesting online tools like you see for World of Warcraft.

How will the combat system feel? What is the balance between stat rolling and style strafing and blasting?

Hellgate: London is first and foremost an RPG. The Templar and Cabalist factions represent this to the greatest degree. The Hunter, while still being rooted in RPG play mechanics, is the most hybrid of the factions. For FPS fans, Hunters are going to be very appealing since they will require a level of personal ability / dexterity, but still firmly rooted in the RPG elements of levels, skills, spells and equipment representing the biggest degrees of scaling. The goal was not to make a "twitch-based" RPG, but rather an RPG that occasionally blends in the compelling elements of the FPS genre.

The number of available weapons is comparatively limited at 20 or so in terms of modern RPG's. Much has been made of how each weapon will feel completely different, how is this implemented?

Hellgate: London has a great mix of technology and magic, meaning there are everything from high-tech guns to flaming swords to magical devices. Characters also have a variety of skills and spells to call upon, so there is really a wide variety of ways for players to hunt down demons. We've created over 100 basic weapon types for the game, and then layered on all of the randomization, customization and rarity elements. This means that there are literally millions of possible combinations in terms of what weaponry you have to play with.

One thing that's really fun to play with is the whole "Mod" idea. Basically, when an item is dynamically generated, there is a chance that it will have slots on it that different Mods (modifications) can fit into. These Mods, which are also randomly created and gathered by players during the course of adventuring, can alter or enhance the effects of the weapons they attach onto. They also change the look of the weapon, as well as the effects of the weapon (muzzle flash, hits, and special effects) so that other players can see what you've done to your gear!

What sort of machine will we need to get a good performance from Hellgate?

We haven't determined the final system requirements for the game, but we've gone to great lengths to assure players that they won't need a bleeding-edge system to enjoy Hellgate: London. We're pushing the envelope upwards with DX10 and Vista support, and downward by creating low-poly versions of all the art assets. We want to do everything we can to ensure that if you have a reasonable system with a decent graphics card, you're going to be able to play.

What extra depth will we get from the mode?

First and foremost, players will be able to enjoy the complete experience of the single player game in a secure, massively multiplayer online setting. Our general intention is to offer an online experience that is very similar to Diablo II for no additional cost.

Past that, gamers will have access to all sorts of expanded content in every area of the game. We are committed to not only providing 24/7 customer and community support, but also to provide ongoing content to continue to expand the world. We have a slew of things in production and on the drawing board, and as we move into alpha and beta testing, we'll start going into them in detail.

The intro is exceptional. How many of those particularly gorgeous cut sequences will we get?

We have two major cinematic sequences in the game and a handful of short in-game cut scenes that tie the story chapters together. We are huge fans of the amazing work that has done with our cinematics and it has been a real honor to have worked with them to bring our story and world to such a detailed and incredible realization.

Thanks for your attentions Bill, best of luck with completing Flagship's debut title.

By Duncan Lawson