It has consumed great civilizations of old.
It stands as an impenetrable bastion of the demon.
What evil dwells in the darkest depths of the Abyss?

Well, that'd be what we made this nifty little Abyss Chronicles teaser trailer to help you determine! Starting with dramatic pans of the new Parliament Square area then breaching the very entrance of the Abyss, this video should serve well to whet your appetite for that which Patch 2 is about to serve up. Discover new abilities, meet new monsters, watch champions of humanity use those new abilities to kill those new monsters. Oh, and say hello to Squadro (big guy at the big finish) while you're at it.


A higher-quality version of the teaser can be found on our YouTube channel or on the HellgateLondon.com front page. A high definition .WMV of the teaser video can be downloaded here from Hellgate: London's HanbitSoft website.

GameBanshee.com has published an impressive collection of Hellgate: London content including an exhaustive item database, massive quest database, and a skill database as well. Not ones to stop there, they have created class pages outlining the skill progression of each and a guide for the mini-game. Additionally, we have provided them with six exclusive screenshots of The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2).





And then, if that wasn't enough, Flagship Studios' Director of Technology Tyler Thompson spoke with GameBanshee in a recent interview which they have published.

GameBanshee: What can we expect from The Abyss Chronicles? What were your primary goals when developing this particular update?

Tyler Thompson: Our Chronicles are designed to be much more than a patch and the Abyss Chronicle is much more significant in scope than our first Chronicle. We’ve added a long laundry list of new features with this update, but the four big goals were making a new set of levels with new boss fights and some really cool rewards, three new skills for each character class, the Blademaster rebalance and the Consignment Shop. The new levels should give Subscribers a lot of new content to run around in. The new skills really enhance the current character classes and allow for some completely new play styles – including the Summoner transforming into a demon who focuses on melee and summons freaky melee fighters. The Blademaster needed some love. He will be doing much more damage and have more viable skills with this update.

The full two-page interview can be found here.

Welcome, Hellgaters, to the first installment of SneakShots. This article will offer a collection of images of upcoming Hellgate: London content composed and captured by yours truly. However, you didn't navigate to this thread to read me prattle on: feast your eyes on this fine selection of pictures from the Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2).






That last fellow, he wouldn't let me leave without taking his picture. He was very insistent.

Shortly after these images were posted to the forums, Korean gaming news site GameMeca posted a nice side-by-side comparison of the screenshots to previously released concept art of the Abyss Chronicles.

Discover that which awaits you in the Abyss, brave Hellgaters! The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) is rapidly taking shape and form and we’re ready to share some of its most exciting offerings with you. As Hellgate: London’s second major content update, the Abyss Chronicles boasts an impressive and lengthy list of new features including a major class rebalance, new environments, new enemies, new skills, new bosses, and new inventory slots . Then there’s the Consignment House, Attribute Respec Vendor, item linking, achievement rewards, and lots more. Suffice to say, the Abyss Chronicle is big. Very big.

Plans are already underway for the patches beyond the Abyss Chronicles. A small content summary for Patch 2.1 has been included as well. This update will open up an entirely new side to Hellgate: London in the form of ranked player versus player (PvP) gameplay. Originally slated for release with the Abyss Chronicles, the decision to release new PvP content as part of a supplemental patch was brought about by a desire to introduce five cohesive elements of PvP in a single update: ranking, matchmaking, rewards, achievements, and Capture The Flag. Together, these features will provide a robust PvP experience within the Hellgate: London universe.

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The Abyss Chronicles (Patch 2) Content Summary

• New Abyss Quest Line with Five New Boss Fights:
  • Travel to the all new Parliament Square and help Titus of the Cabal fend off the rapid spread of the Abyss, a new Demonic underground that grows in size as Demonkind consumes more of our world. The only way to halt the Abyss is to seek out and destroy those who control it. Lure the five Abyss Lords from their cursed realm by collapsing their Hellrifts (a new Rift for each of the boss types), then confront the masters as they emerge to investigate the problem. Five repeatable boss runs with five new bosses! Features three new environments and some reworked environments.


• New Shared Stash System:
  • The Shared Stash will now feature separate panes for each gameplay mode: Normal, Elite, Hardcore, and Hardcore Elite. Items currently in your Shared Stash will be placed in the correct pane.


• Major Rebalance of the Blademaster Class:
  • The Blademaster class has been significantly rebalanced with changes to almost every skill. Overall, they should d
  • more damage and have many more options than before. Some of the highlights include Strength now stacking on top of the skill percent bonuses – a huge boost – and Blademasters can now gain a Surge with any melee attack or with any melee skill (rather than just when killing something with a Surge skill).


• Improved, Configurable Guild Controls:
  • Guilds will now have four titles they can assign to members. The titles can be renamed. There can only be one Guild Leader. Non-subscribers can only have the lowest title. The Guild Leader can configure what the middle tw
  • titles are allowed to d
  • including invite new members, promote and demote existing members, kick members, and send all-guild e-mail. The lowest title is not allowed to invite, promote, demote, kick, or send guild e-mails.


• Consignment House:
  • Players can place items into the Consignment House to offer them for sale at a set price. All players in the same gameplay mode can see and purchase that item. The Consignment House currently only offers a “buy out” price, there is no bidding.


• Three New Skills for all Classes:
  • Skill Scrolls are new items which unlock the new skills and allow skill points to be put into them. For example, the Spider Mine Schematic unlocks the Spider Mine skill for Engineers. The Skill Scrolls will be tradeable and can be used by all players; however, they drop off of boss monsters in the subscriber-only Abyss levels. Only a few of the skills will be enabled in the first Patch 2 build that goes to Test Center. Here are a couple sample skills to whet your appetite:
    1. The Summoner will get a melee demon transformation with zombie minions.
    2. The Blademaster will get skills that use up Surges to do things like perform a group heal.
    3. The Engineer will get Spider Mines.


• Trinket Inventory Slots:
  • There will be two new Trinket inventory slots. The first trinkets will drop as cursed rings which can be cleaned up through the Transmogrifier. These cursed rings will mostly drop in the Abyss levels, but they can be found elsewhere too. These items are tradeable and can be used by all players.


• Attribute Respec Vendor:
  • Bob, the Attribute Respec Vendor, will allow you to spend palladium to remove points one at a time from an Attribute and add them to your unassigned Attribute Points pool. The cost to remove each point goes up with character level.


• Stack Splitting:
  • You will be able to right-click on a stack of items and select to split it into smaller stacks using a new radial menu option. A dialog will pop up and let you type in how many items to place in the new stack.


• Gameplay Changes:
  • Character defenses against Secondary Damage Effects have been increased.
  • Shield Overload has been removed from sword weapons.
  • Strength has a much more significant impact on melee skill damage.


• Item Linking:
  • Players will be able to enter a clickable “link” to an item’s details into the chat pane by right-clicking on the item and selecting the Link Item option on the radial menu.


• Achievement Rewards
• New Armor and Weapons for all Factions
• New Monster Types
• New Chat Color Scheme
• Many bug fixes and performance tweaks.
• A few more features yet to be announced.

Patch 2.1 Content Summary

• PvP Ranking
• PvP Matchmaking for Teams and Individuals
• PvP Points and Rewards
• PvP Achievements
• Capture the Flag PvP Game
• Improved predictability and balance for the attribute feed system.

We are hoping to get a Patch 2.0 build into Test Center next week, but we will see what happens.