Former Flagship Studios Seattle team becomes Runic Games

by Griffin McElroy { Aug 10th 2008 at 11:30AM }

Since the very first word was uttered concerning the firing of nearly all of Flagship Studios' staff, the story has unfolded into a twisted bramble of confusion regarding IP ownership and disappointment for the Mythos and Hellgate: London developer. Today, however, we got the first bit of somewhat uplifting news on the matter -- Flagship's Seattle chapter (the group formerly in charge of Mythos) was recently reformed and remonikered into a new development team: Runic Games.

This news came from a brief press release on the newly formed company's website. While the release promises further details in the coming days concerning properties Runic will be working on, little else is explained -- such as the fate of the former employees of Flagship proper, or whether or not the team plans to regain control of their "highly anticipated" MMO. We'll keep you updated, provided these announcements will be as prompt as the reborn developer suggests.

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Tags: flagship-studios, flagship-studios-seattle, hellgate-london, mythos, runic-games

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

äsdf @ Aug 10th 2008 11:50AM

Awesome. It is very good to hear that all is not lost for those guys.

Xanto @ Aug 10th 2008 12:25PM

Well whatever they decide to do, best of luck to them

Sheppy (of the Fidlious Clan of Wong) @ Aug 10th 2008 12:51PM

Here's the question I have, are all those copies on Hellgate:London on the shelf no longer valid? Are servers still being ran?

Marcelo Abans @ Aug 10th 2008 1:46PM

Looking forward to their next disastrous venture..

äsdf @ Aug 10th 2008 2:26PM

Trust me, there are worse games out there than Hellgate: London. It wasn't all it was supposed to be, but the company didn't deserve all the shit it got over it.

Metkis @ Aug 11th 2008 6:35AM

The company deserved to learn what makes a great game isn't the money but the fans. By basically going under, they should have learned their lesson. When a key leader in a company expresses his disinterest in bringing patches (that fixed honest-to-goodness BUGS) to the non-monthy-fee-paying members simply because they aren't forking over money additional to the 50 they paid for the game, they are being greedy and deserve this flak.

Trust me, they didn't get their reputation for nothing. Mythos was handled by the Ping0 team and was effectively done so. Quite frankly, the only good thing to come out of that company yet was Mythos.

BetrayerKing @ Aug 10th 2008 1:16PM

You do realize that the game doesn't need servers to work, right?

PS36Wii Fanboy @ Aug 10th 2008 1:26PM

Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos,Mythos.... YAY!!!!!

Residentevil72501 @ Aug 10th 2008 1:30PM

I really havent heard anything about Mythos ever, for a struggling company trying to make a big MMO sounds way to risky. Especially with Warhammer and Wrath of the Lich King coming out in just a few months.

äsdf @ Aug 10th 2008 2:23PM

That would be right if Mythos was a direct competitor with the likes of WoW and WAR, but it isn't.

MythosHero @ Aug 13th 2008 5:44PM

Need to clear things up it seems, The team that created Mythos was the small group of 14ish located in Seattle. There was very little influence, if any ,from the SanFrancisco team on the Mythos project. Also the Seattle team had nothing to do with almost anything with Hellgate. The only thing the games shared was the engine, which was probably more of a negative for the Seattle team than a plus.
So before you get on the hate train for Runic at least know who you are hating on and why. Let your Flagship hate die with Flagship and give the Runic guys a fair shot.
Goodluck Runic!