The Stonehenge Chronicles, Hellgate: London's first content update, has launched and gaming media sites have taken notice. GameSpy.com posted a thorough review of the major update earlier today, complete with "London Calling" lyrics for passage headers. Author Gerald Villoria touched on all aspects of what waits beyond the portal to Stonehenge.

"Stonehenge is a very handy place to check out for subscribers, as it's the only base of operations with no less than four different vendors at a time, offering expensive yet very useful armor, weapons and mods. All the standard trappings of a quest hub are here, as well as the gates that lead you to the new content areas. The central questing area is Wake Hallow, which serves as an instance with entrances to the domains of Moloch's followers. The idea is to collect the heads of each of these overlords, unlocking the path to Moloch himself."

The article goes on to discuss the drop rate of essences and how the content update encourages players to band together against the demons. A good read, certainly; check it out here.

Hellgaters! We march to Stonehenge!

Hellgate: London's first major content update, the Stonehenge Chronicles, launched early this morning. After a day's pause to exterminate two pesky bugs, brave Hellgaters have already ventured out into the hellspawn-infested realms beyond the safety of the monolithic ruins built by druids long past. Sending back word of their conquests in forms both written and visual, reports from the front lines are unanimous: Stonehenge shall not fall into demon hands. Putting their rivalries aside, Templar, Hunters, and Cabalists have banded together to seek out the enemy in its lair, felling minions and masters of hell's castes to reach an eternal evil.

In addition to this new subscriber content, all players get to enjoy a host of fresh features, gameplay tweaks, and a reworked Evoker class. Buddy lists are now account-based, the crafting system has been streamlined, and the user interface now has scaling elements. Add in abundant bug fixes and improved textures on party members and you've one heck of a giant content update. The Stonehenge Chronicles patch notes can be found here and the patch itself can be downloaded here.

It's time to take the fight to the demon. We march!

In the eleventh hour, just a day before the doors to the Stonehenge Chronicles were to open wide, a pair of bugs descended upon the Test Center build of the massive patch. Suffice to say, they were big enough to warrant a brief wait before launching the content update in the interest of delivering a solid product.

Now utterly squashed into little bug pieces by our valiant QA team, Stonehenge is ready to welcome all manner of champions of humanity, be you Templar, Hunter, or Cabalist. However, take care, for while the mystic environs of Stonehenge may seduce your senses, legions of demons both familiar and alien lie in wait and will gleefully ambush any heroes who gaze at the new surroundings a bit too long.

Tomorrow, January 22nd, the Shulgoth (US) and Sydonai (EU) servers will be coming down in the early morning to make ready for the Stonehenge Chronicles update. In-game announcements will begin prior to the shutdown. Barring any unforeseen issues or catastrophes, natural or otherwise, the process will take about three hours.

Patch notes for the Stonehenge Chronicles can be found here.

In an effort to enable Hellgaters who would like to subscribe to Hellgate: London but can't use our current payment methods, subscribing via PayPal and PayByCash is now possible. While this was mentioned in our recent press release about the launch of Stonehenge, we wanted to also mention that the Founder's Offer will be coming to an end on January 31st.

This is to allow those who couldn't use our original payment options a window of time to select it. The Founder's Offer is a one-time payment which grants a lifetime subscription to Hellgate: London and is made available to those players who pre-ordered the game.

Our upcoming content update, the Stonehenge Chronicles, in addition to providing all players with key gameplay adjustments, skill balances, user interface improvements, a PvP dueling arena, bug fixes, and a new crafting system element, also features exclusive content for Hellgate: London subscribers including new environments, monsters, mini-raid areas, and items.

Howdy folks! It seems there's a little confusion out there regarding the upcoming patch. Just to make it clear to everyone, there's a lot of stuff in there for both subscribers and non-subscribers. Skill tweaks, UI improvements, respecs, the PvP arena, new animations, and more - these are for everyone.

If you check the patch notes here, everything above "Special Subscriber Features" is included for all players. ^_^

As we continue to expand the Hellgate universe in the coming months, we have every intention to improve the game for everyone, subscriber or not.

Sorry for any confusion!

The Stonehenge Chronicles
Update Notes
Happy New Year!

2008 is upon us, and we’re thrilled to be kicking it off with our first major update – the Stonehenge Chronicles. We’ve got a lot in store for all of our players, so let’s get to it!

In this update, you’ll see the first of the big balance sweeps we’re doing on all of the character classes. Both the Guardian and the Evoker got a lot of attention this time around, and we hope that players of those classes will dig into how the classes play now. We’re making it simple for these players to get a handle on the new balances by allowing them to completely respec their characters.

PvP is starting to get more attention with the introduction of the Dueling Arena. This both makes dueling easier to accomplish and also gives us a better and more accurate way to track play habits and stats – a key to really increasing this section of the game.

There’s also a whole slew of other overall improvements, tweaks, and additions, so take a couple of minutes to go through the release notes and see what’s new.

For our Subscription Members, we’re opening the portal to Stonehenge! This is a completely new area that not only has new items and monsters, but also completely new ways to experience the game.

The Essence Caves are the first of our non-linear style of play. You can repeat this long quest chain multiple times throughout the career of your character as it scales with your character (or party) level. The rewards are rich and many of them are unique to the Stonehenge area.

The Wild is also a new type of game play since it is focused exclusively on group play. You need big groups to have success out there – and the deeper you get, the harder it gets. It’s time to get your friends together!

We’ve got lots more in store, and we’re working on every aspect of the game. Thank you all for your support over the past couple of months. We’re listening and doing all we can to make Hellgate: London what we all want.

See you online!

The Hellgate: London Team

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Click here to read the full Stonehenge Chronicles patch notes!