Pandemic Studios
 | |
| Company type | Private (Subsidiary of Electronic Arts) |
|---|---|
| Industry | Software & Programming |
| Founded | Santa Monica, California (1998) |
| Headquarters | Los Angeles, California |
Key people | Andrew Goldman, CEO Josh Resnick, President |
| Products | Full Spectrum Warrior Star Wars: Battlefront Star Wars: Battlefront II Destroy All Humans! series Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (See complete products listing) |
| Website | www.pandemicstudios.com |
Pandemic is a video game developer with office 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 II, Destroy All Humans! 2 and Mercenaries.
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, office in Brisbane, Australia has been shut down.[3]
Teams
There are currently several development teams 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, published by EA Games.
- Project B, Q, Z teams, currently working on several unannounced projects and the recently announced Saboteur, a game chronicling the adventures of a French resistance fighter during WWII.
Defunct Teams
- The Brisbane Team, which was working on project X, the status of the project is currently unknown. The team became defunct when the Brisbane Office of Pandemic Studios closed.
Completed games
- Battlezone II (1999)
- Dark Reign 2 (2000)
- Triple Play 2002 (2002)
- Army Men RTS (2002)
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars (video game) (2002)
- Full Spectrum Warrior (2004)
- Star Wars: Battlefront (2004)
- Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005)
- Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (2005)
- Destroy All Humans! (2005)
- Destroy All Humans! 2 (2006)
- Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (2008)
- The Lord of the Rings: Conquest (2009)
Games in development
- Saboteur (2009)
- An untitled project simply entitled "Project X"[4] (initially rumored to be Star Wars: Battlefront III, but later rebuked[5] [6])
- An untitled project entitled Project Y.[1]
- An untitled project entitled Project B.(cancelled, listing disappeared when Pandemic Brisbane closed)
- An untitled project entitled Project Q.(cancelled, listing disappeared when Pandemic Brisbane closed)
- The Dark Knight (cancelled) [7]
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.
- ^ Secret Projects
- ^ Pandemic Studios Forums Post
- ^ Article later posted
- ^ http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/88736-Screwing-Up-Batman