As we reported previously, Namco-Bandai published titles distributed through EA’s partners program and Flagship Studios-developed Hellgate London were set to shut down their servers on January 31st. In a strange twist, HanbitSoft, which had previously only operated the Korean operations, has now claimed that they own the IP, engine and source code for Hellgate London and it will continue with a new free-to-play model.

According to the latest reports HanbitSoft says that they are planning future updates for Hellgate London in hopes of attempting to strengthen the community features while attempting to preserve the core gameplay.

While the company did not announce a timetable for the first “large-scale” patch, the company is saying that we will see it soon. The patch will also unite the two play modes of the game in an effort to bring both communities together. The company says that they are planning additional class balance improvements as well as additional distinction among the game’s five acts.

The company did not say who would be working on the new patches for the title, but with Flagship Studios gone it is unlikely that we will see any move to reopen the studio; but we would not be surprised to see some of the game’s developers involved in the updates to the title on a consulting basis.

Hellgate was plagued by a lot of problems during the initial launch of the product, and while some of the patches did help to improve the product, it would seem that HanbitSoft will have their work cut out for them in attempting to resurrect this title with the free-to-play model and plans to attract players again after many have given it such a bad rap.