Electronic Arts had a demo of their upcoming FPS/RPG/MMOG hybrid Hellgate: London running in their Barker Hangar booth, and we had an absolute blast. While not a lot has changed in Hellgate: London since the last time we took a look at it, the Flagship representative had an explanation for it. Previous demos of Hellgate showed off material from zero to fifteen percent of the game. The E3 2007 demo explored the material all the way up to seventeen percent.

That's far from bad, however, as we had a chance to look at a brand new environment. One of the generated levels takes place in the synapses of one of Hellgate: London's inhabitants. Unlike the fantastically-styled demons and city destruction that's made up most of the game we've seen so far, everything in the mind of this inhabitant is very organic with a very rounded, wet look. The level will feature several mini-bosses that represent parts of the brain's psyche, with the boss battle against the ego.

The game now features six unique classes as opposed to three classes that specialize at level 10. Players will be able to take these characters online regardless of their subscription type. Flagship is still looking to bring over a hundred unique weapons to the table, on top of an armor generation system similar to Diablo or World of Warcraft. The demo running at the Barker Hanger booth was running in DirectX 9, and still managed to look great. Since Flagship wasn't showing levels that took a great advantage of DX10 technology, they weren't displaying this version of the title.

Flagship also went a bit more in-depth into the Elite versus Standard subscription system. Standard players will have access to both the complete single player campaign and online multiplayer. Elite subscribers, who will be paying ten dollars a month, a bit below industry standard for an MMORPG, will continue to receive new content, have access to things like auction houses, and gain access to hardcore mode after defeating the game once. Hellgate: London's hardcore mode means that if a character dies once, that character is dead forever, never to be in the game again, aside from a ghost that can wander the cities, proving to other inhabitants that you, indeed, made it to level 50 as an Engineer on hardcore mode.

We're stoked for the release of Hellgate: London later on this year, so keep your eyes peeled to RPGFan for more information as it becomes available.