Susan Arendt
Culture

Is Hellgate a Warcraft Leftover?

You probably already know the basic shtick for upcoming please-dear-lord-let-them-put-it-on-the-360 title Hellgate: London– nasty creatures covered in demon ick overtake an alternate reality London and drop loot–but what you may not know is that this yummy conceit was originally considered for Warcraft II. No, seriously! In an interview with Games for Windows, Hellgate honcho and […]

Hellgate
You probably already know the basic shtick for upcoming please-dear-lord-let-them-put-it-on-the-360 title Hellgate: London-- nasty creatures covered in demon ick overtake an alternate reality London and drop loot--but what you may not know is that this yummy conceit was originally considered for Warcraft II. No, seriously!

In an interview with Games for Windows, Hellgate honcho and former Crafter of Stars Bill Roper said that when the team was spitballing ideas for Warcraft II, they came up with what would become the basic backbone of Hellgate:

After the first Warcraft and when we were talking about Warcraft II, there was an idea for about a week where we'd open another portal open and have the Orcs invade the modern-day world. We had this whole cut-scene we were talking about where it was going to be dragons and
F-16s and firefights and stuff. And we were like, "Man, that's going to be weird. That's going to suck. That's not going to be Warcraft."

I hope he's revised his thinking about the "that's going to suck" part.

The concept for Hellgate:London may have come from a failed Warcraft II pitch [Opposable Thumbs]