Pandemic Studios
 | |
| Company type | Subsidiary of Electronic Arts |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software & Programming |
| Founded | Santa Monica, California (1998) |
| Defunct | 2009 |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California |
Key people | Andrew Goldman, CEO Josh Resnick, President |
| Products | Full Spectrum Warrior Star Wars: Battlefront (I & II) Destroy All Humans! (1 & 2) Mercenaries series (See complete products listing) |
| Website | www.pandemicstudios.com |
Pandemic was an American video game developer with offices in Los Angeles, California. The studio is notable for featuring fully-destructible environments in its games. Notable titles include Full Spectrum Warrior, Star Wars: Battlefront, Destroy All Humans! and Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.
History
The company's president is Josh Resnick and its CEO is Andrew Goldman — both formerly worked at Activision, and Pandemic was founded with an equity investment by Activision in 1998. Pandemic's first two games, Battlezone II and Dark Reign 2, were both sequels to Activision games.
In 2000, Pandemic opened a satellite studio in the Brisbane suburb of Fortitude Valley. The first project was Army Men RTS, a console RTS game using the Dark Reign 2 engine. This studio would later develop Destroy All Humans!.
In 2003, the Los Angeles studio moved from its founding location at Santa Monica to a high-rise building in Westwood.
In November 2005, it was announced that Pandemic and BioWare would be joining forces, with private equity fund Elevation Partners investing in the partnership. However, both companies will retain their brands and identities[1].
On October 11, 2007, it was announced that VG Holding Corp, the owners of Bioware and Pandemic Studios, would be acquired by Electronic Arts as of January 2008, subject to FTC approval.[2]
In February 2009, their office in Brisbane, Australia was shut down.[3]
In November 2009, the owner of Pandemic Studios, Electronic Arts, cut a total of 1500 jobs which affected various studios. Rumors have said that Pandemic Studios will be closed as part of the cost cutting measures by Electronic Arts and that some of their current projects such as The Saboteur will be passed on to Electronic Arts Los Angeles. [4]
On November 17, 2009, EA officially confirmed Pandemic Studios will be closed, laying off 228 employees. EA will absorb 35 Pandemic employees to support The Saboteur & an unannounced project rumored to be Project X from their website.[5]
Teams
At the time of closing, several development teams existed inside Pandemic:
- Full Spectrum Warrior team, responsible for the original game as well as its sequel, Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers.
- Star Wars team, who developed the Star Wars: Battlefront series,
- Mercenaries team, has recently finished production on Mercenaries 2: World in Flames, which was released on August 31st 2008, published by EA Games.
- Saboteur team, who are currently developing the game Saboteur which is a game chronicling the adventures of a French resistance fighter during WWII.
Defunct Teams
- The Brisbane Team was working on many projects, including Projects B and Q, The Dark Knight video game, and The Next Big Thing (an episodic Wii game), when their branch was closed. All the games they had in production were canceled.
Games
Completed games
- Battlezone II (1999)
- Dark Reign 2 (2000)
- Triple Play 2002 (2002)
- Army Men RTS (2002)
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2002)
- Full Spectrum Warrior (2004)
- Star Wars: Battlefront (2004)
- Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005)
- Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005)
- Destroy All Humans! (2005)
- Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers (2006)
- Destroy All Humans! 2 (2006)
- Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (2008)
- The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (2009)
Games in development
Pandemic currently has one announced game, Saboteur, in production and two unannounced games known simply as Project X and Y which are listed on Pandemic's Official Site. Project X has been listed since 2007 while Project Y was recently listed in 2009. Both projects are rumored to be based on the Mercenaries franchise.
- The Saboteur (2009)
- An untitled project simply entitled "Project X"[6] (initially rumored to be Star Wars: Battlefront III, but later debunked[7] [8])
- An untitled project entitled Project Y.[1][9]
Cancelled games
Pandemic currently has three cancelled games mainly due to the closure of its Brisbane Studio in which one announced game, The Dark Knight, and two unannounced games, Project B and Q, were in development at time of closure. The listings of Project B and Q disappeared from Pandemic's Official Site on the day of the Brisbane Studio's closure.
- Project B
- Project Q
- The Dark Knight (cancelled) [10]
Either Project B or Q was The Next Big Thing, previously titled No Limits Racing, for the Wii. The project was supposed to utilize Mii's and feature celebrity cameos like Mr. T and David Hasselhoff.
References
- ^ Bioware & Pandemic Merge - TotalGaming.net news, 3 November, 2005
- ^ EA To Acquire BioWare Corp. and Pandemic Studios
- ^ "Pandemic Brisbane Shut Down". Ausgamers.com. 2009-02-11. Retrieved 2009-02-12.
- ^ James Orry. "EA closes Pandemic Studios". Retrieved 2009-11-18.
- ^ Brian Crecente (November 17, 2009). "Confirmed: EA Closes Pandemic Studios, Says Brand Will Live On". Kotaku. Retrieved November 17, 2009.
- ^ Secret Projects
- ^ Pandemic Studios Forums Post
- ^ Article later posted
- ^ Project Y Site:http://www.pandemicstudios.com/corp/currentprojects
- ^ http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/88736-Screwing-Up-Batman