It’s the end of the line for Hellgate: London, the only major output of the now-defunct Flagship Studios, as publisher Namco Bandai has announced that it will support the game’s servers through January 31, 2009, after which they will be shut down.

Online multiplayer for the action-RPG will continue to be free as a “further gesture of support”, noted the publisher, who saved the game’s servers back in July after the collapse of Flagship.

Flagship Studios was composed of mostly Blizzard veterans who had worked on the Diablo series. Thus, Hellgate: London was billed as a “spiritual successor to Diablo”, though it failed to live up to expectations.