IGN site Ve3d has confirmed that Flagship Studios is closed as of today, Saturday, July 12th. Read their report below.

Flagships's Community Manager, Taylor Balbi, has revealed, through sources, that all Ping0 and Flagship Studios staff have been made redundant. Employees were notified at a company meeting and subsequently informed that the offices will be officially closed on Saturday. Balbi went on to reveal that three of the studio's top brass dug into their own pockets to provide 30 days of pay to all employees.

Word of the studio closure reached Korean distributor HanbitSoft, leading to the release of a statement regarding intellectual property control and the subsequent clarification by their American lawyers that included the following sentence: "It is unfortunate that Flagship turned down additional investments HanbitSoft offered to make that would have allowed it to keep its doors open."

As also referenced in the legal release, HanbitSoft hopes to independently continue development of Mythos, to which it owns the rights thanks to a loan agreement enacted with Flagship. Comerica now owns the Hellgate: London rights through a similar loan agreement, and will likely continue Asian development with HanbitSoft. As for English-language releases of the two games, it is possible that the Asian companies would continue development, though in the case of Hellgate: London it is unlikely (Mythos has a far better business model and is attracting extremely positive press).

This has been a fast development and one that begs a thousand questions be answered. Perhaps the recent "what went wrong" revelations by Max Schaefer at Eurogamer were setting the stage for this stunning decision. The near future, hopefully, will reveal some answers though it's sounding like Hellgate players will not receive the ones they would like to hear.

We'll keep you posted. In the meantime, play Hellgate while you can.