Hellgate: London on the Xbox 360 is a rumor that refuses to die, and with good reason. The game is co-published by EA, who has a history of bringing previously PC-exclusive franchises such as The Sims and Command & Conquerer (and The Orange Box) to consoles. Additionally, Hellgate: London’s action-heavy, FPS gameplay would be a perfect match for Microsoft’s console, with its strong online component finding ample support through Xbox Live. And while the game isn’t particularly noteworthy on the PC, outclassed even by recent Diablo 2 wannabes such as Titan Quest, it would be unmatched in the console arena, where most people’s only experience with the loot porn genre comes from Phantasy Star Online and Baldur’s Gate spinoffs.

In their recent patch 0 datadump, featuring information regarding the much-fabled 0-day patch that will magically transform Hellgate: London into a polished AAA title, Flagship revealed that those lucky enough to pay for a Hellgate: London subscription would gain access to Xbox Live-style achievements in addition to a host of other features not worth a monthly fee. Interesting, indeed!

Finally, during my experience in the beta, I was often confused by the game’s strange interface choices. Right clicking on an item in your inventory brings up a radial menu with options to sell, equip, identify, destroy, or break down an item into its component parts. While convenient in theory, in practice this approach feels clunky in comparison to similar titles’ right click-focused interfaces. However, applied to a console controller rather than a PC’s mouse, where dragging and dropping is less logistically feasible, this radial menu makes perfect sense. In fact, it’s nearly identical to the much-hyped radial menu in the Xbox 360 version of EA’s upcoming Command & Conquer 3 expansion.

So, is Hellgate: London coming to the Xbox 360 any time soon? Probably not. But pretending it might be certainly keeps this site up to date for another day and provides lots of Google-friendly terms for the next search engine cache.