10 GENIUS Concepts Wasted On Buggy Video Games

Hellgate: London’s sales pitch could be summarised as “if Diablo existed in an apocalyptic, modern-day London, with the option to switch between third and first-person perspective”. If that didn’t get your juices flowing, you’re more dead than the atrophied muscles in my sedentary quarantine gamer legs.

Created by a team of former Blizzard Entertainment employees, Hellgate: London wears its inspiration quite clearly on its viscera-coated berserker sleeves, with swathes of demonic enemies baying for your blood (with the stakes being high - Hellgate uses roguelike elements to keep you on your toes).

Sometimes referred to as “Doom Diablo” (having the pace and the grotesque intimacy of first-person murderin’ whilst retaining the micromanagement of picking up a hundred bits of loot a minute), Hellgate would befall a terrible fate, however - with decreasing funds the servers became nightmarishly poor, and in 2008 the team filed for bankruptcy, with all of its intellectual property - including Hellgate - seized by debt collectors.

However, don’t despair - if you still want to play it, HanbitSoft now owns the rights and re-released it as Hellgate London: Resurrection, and you can play it right this second... if you live in South Korea.

What hellish luck.