The Crusades were actually undertaken to fight back the minions of Hell, as was the charring of London in the great fire to wipe out the Plague. According to the fiction, the famous Knights Templar were the keepers of knowledge on how to battle these demonic forces. Unfortunately, these heroes underwent a charring of their own at the hands of a jealous King Phillip IV, who hated the power they held in the world at large. While the Knights Templar survived as an organization, their numbers were severely diminished and were forced to remain in hiding to stay alive.

Unfortunately, as time passed and technology progressed, the old ways began to fade from memory and the arcane was replaced with the arcade. When the demons attacked this time, they came again into London and found their enemies unprepared. The modern military found itself severely under-equipped when bullets and tank shells started bouncing off their targets. It would seem that a different strategy was in order, but when the Templars offered their special kind of services to the military, the leaders balked, blinded in their refusal to believe in the new truth. Hell broke into London and set up shop, erecting a huge new gate for demons to freely travel back and forth. Survivors, led by the few surviving Templar, headed underground into safe areas, hoping to one day find an opportunity to reclaim their home.

Five years later, London is in ruins. The fate of the rest of the planet is unknown, while demons roam the streets of London. "All players know is that it's been five years,, and no one has come to help them," says Roper. The goal is to find out what exactly has happened to the world, along with a way to close the gate between realms to stop the constant flood of demons. The story actually reminded me of the recent movie 28 Days Later, which was also set in London and full of killing machines, though Hellgate sounds a bit... bigger.

Now, Bill Roper is a talker. He obviously likes his job, loves the game he's working on, and thinks the world of the crew there at Flagship. After loading one of the early versions of the game up for demo purposes, he explained the game as it is now and what they're hoping it will be, in a great amount of detail. I'm guessing you don't want to spend three hours reading a preview, so I'll try to keep it succinct. I'll start by saying if you're a fan of Diablo, this game is certainly one you'll want to keep your eyes on.​

Levels, item drops, creatures, events, and difficulty level are all dynamically generated based on the group entering the zone of play. How big the group is and what level they are will directly affect the way the level is generated. At this point, they don't have a definite number of players that can be in a group, though Roper says it's theoretically as large as you want it to be. We'll have to wait and see what the verdict is when the game finally ships, but the prospect of large teams of weapon toting humans bent on revenge is pretty awesome.

"Hellgate is an action RPG, first and foremost. So we're making the action more friendly for players that aren't huge FPS fanatics," explained Roper. "Success should be based on skills, level, items, and so on. So it's really based on what makes you successful in an RPG. That being said, it certainly isn't going to hurt a guy if he's good at shooters."

Of course, melee weapons don't have any of these concerns and will be more familiar to RPG fans in general. The tradeoff for using a melee weapon will be a third-person perspective. While they'd love to be able to keep melee fighting in the first-person, it's just too difficult to get a sense of distance and space in general to be useful. When's the last time you saw a really good melee fighter in first-person?​