It was incredibly surprising to hear that Pandemic -- a studio hard at work on the The Saboteur -- had been eradicated by Electronic Arts during a wave of layoffs. Despite the surprising turn of events, however, a former Pandemic employee believes EA did the right thing, and also added that The Saboteur is being sent to its death.
"The reason why the studio closed down has everything to do with the existing Pandemic management," an anonymous poster tells NeoGAF. "From what we were told, Pandemic management was given free reign to do as they please. Time and time again, they dropped the ball with bad decisions (promoting/keeping people based on loyalty, no production accountability, mis-allocation of resources, poor milestone objectives, no mentoring, etc.). It's a true shame, as there was a lot of talent and passion at the studio."
This former employee does not blame EA, who "probably made the right decision." However, he does blame EA for the cold death that he believes The Saboteur will face.
"One more thing I will say: EA is totally sending Saboteur out to die. And it's a f*cking shame. It's easily Pandemic's best game yet. Of course, I am a bit biased having worked on the game for so long. If you were disappointed with Mercs2 and LOTR (who wasn't) and enjoyed previous Pandemic games, give Saboteur a shot."
The Saboteur is out in December, and I have been looking forward to it, so we shall have to see how it goes. I hope it does well, because if anything, Pandemic deserves one last hurrah.
Contest:
8:40 AM on 11.19.2009
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It does look good though, and as a fan of older Pandemic work (Mercs 1, one of my top PS2 games, the only game my Backwards compatability has had the pleasure of seeing) despite the piss poor Mercs 2.
I will check this game out.
*** Puts on sunglasses ***
... was sabotaged himself.
YYYYYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!
~ikiryu, 2009, assumedly sponsored by Blistex.
But again, it was a cold calculated CORPORATE decision, so of course this decision was probably inevetability going to be made.
On a personal/selfish note. I was really dreading the idea whilst reading this article that I'd have to tell my mum not to look for this game for when she went christmas shopping. It looks awesome!
If the wrong people are in charge, it doesn't matter how talented a team you have.
dammit i loved the first mercenaries and the first 2 star wars battlefront games were great
Saboteur sounds good... I might grab it if Steam puts it up with a decent pre-order deal.
Little things like the npc's talking in english instead of the countries tounge like they did in the original. The exclusion of the deck of 52 in 2. Also the fact that you had to stand still when throwing airstrike beacons was a retarded design decision.
not to mention the game was a fuckin glitchfest
sure, the first game wasnt completely stable, but for the most part it was able to hold its own weight
and the AI in the first game was excellent unlike in mercs 2
I guess the Destroy All Humans franchise is dead too?
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