EA Downsizes Pandemic Studios

Party is such sweet sorrow...

A rumor posted on Kotaku claimed that Electronic Arts was set to disband Pandemic Studios today, “according to several sources close to the situation.”

IGN then confirmed the layoffs through an EA spokesman, who stated that “EA is committed to the Pandemic brand and franchises,” and that “A core team of Pandemic developers will move to EALA and continue development on Pandemic games with a focus on quality, cost management and schedule integrity.”

Could this be a case of mistaken identity?  Did someone at EA misunderstand when the Swine Flu was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization?  Probably not.  Electronic Arts announced their plan to lay off over 1500 employees and to cancel twelve in-developement titles last week, after the nearly $300M takeover of the casual/social gaming giant, Playfish.

This is going to hurt me more than it hurts you...

Roughly 200 Pandemic employees received their walking papers today, but no word yet on whether Pandemic’s still-secret Project X and Project Y are among the twelve titles getting the axe.  Pandemic’s official website revealed their excitement for these two projects:

“Project X
We’re so amped up about Project X that it’s hard for us not to tell everyone everything about it today.  But we can’t.  When we can talk about this project, we’ll have all the exciting news here on this site.”

“Project Y
We’re confident that Project Y is a game that will break new ground in its category and in the video game industry.   Unfortunately, for the time being, we can’t even tell anyone what category.  Stay tuned – this one will be announced soon.”

Hopefully we will learn more about these projects and their fate soon.  Pandemic Studios’ highly anticipated game, The Saboteur, is scheduled for release on December 8th, 2009.

After the Fact: Pandemic Studios’ Games and Metacritic Scores (to-date)

Dark Reign 2 (2000 PC): 77

Triple Play 2002 (2002 Xbox, PS2): 64, 65

Army Men: RTS (2002 PS2, GameCube, PC): 68, N/A, 67

Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2002 Xbox, PS2, GameCube): 71, 72, 73

Full Spectrum Warrior (2004 Xbox, PC): 84, 80

Star Wars: Battlefront (2004 Xbox, PS2, PC): 80, 82, 76

Mercenaries (2005 Xbox, PS2): 86, 84

Full Spectrum Warrior (2005 PS2): 74

Destroy All Humans! (2005 Xbox, PS2): 76, 74

Star Wars: Battlefront II (2005 Xbox, PS2, PSP, PC): 83, 84, 69, 78

Full Spectrum Warrior: Ten Hammers (2006 Xbox, PS2, PC): 69, 71, 70

Destroy All Humans! 2 (2006 Xbox, PS2): 74, 74

Mercenaries 2: World in Flames (2008 Xbox 360, PS3, PC): 72, 72, 70

Lord of the Rings: Conquest, The (2009 Xbox 360, PS3, PC): 55, 54, 57

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