The Saboteur goes gold despite developer going dark

by Ben Gilbert on Nov 21st 2009 7:30PM

Though The Saboteur developer Pandemic Studios is losing its 200-person staff, the company's final game has just "gone gold" across Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. In a post on the studio's forums, Community Manager Mathew Everett noted that while "this has been a very difficult week for Pandemic Studios," The Saboteur will still be "available across Europe starting December 4 and throughout North America on December 8."

Unfortunately, it would appear that EA (the game's publisher) has forgotten about said release dates, choosing to offer as little marketing push as possible. We wish the folks at Pandemic Studios the best and offer our condolences to those who recently lost their jobs.

[Via PlanetXbox360]

The Saboteur (11-10-09)

Source

Tags: ea, Electronic-Arts, gold, Microsoft, pandemic, pandemic-studios, pc, saboteur, the-saboteur, Xbox-360

Reader Comments (68)

This looks like a good game, but i'm unsure about it yet. I'm still waiting for the review to come in.

I second the condolences to those who recently lost their jobs also.

The last time I purchased a game from a developer that tanked right before it's release, I was severely disappointed. Once bitten, twice shy. Sorry Saboteur, looks like I won't be putting up with your irish-insulting shenanigans after all.

I really think devs should start inputting code that collapses the game without their anecdotal code patched in via DLC. Something like a month after release... If you're connected to PSN / Live your game goes corrupt on all saves. A patch just before that time would prevent it from executing, but only your team would have the code to patch in. That'd be some sweet job security.

A bunch of pissed off gamers, but hey, the devs wont be a studio any more so it's not like they'd care. Just plead ignorance to the producers and say they had no idea the game was glitched like that and they can't really be sued. It's not their fault they're not on staff anymore to fix the bug.

Why do people still do this? Was it ever funny?

Damn blimps.

Yeah, blimps really grind my gears, too. Why don't they get with the freaking program?

Balloon Boys are soooo much better.

For a second that blimp looked like an exploding Halo ring... Man, I need to get some better glasses (and better games).

It's hilarious when they get second or third, but when they actually get first it's nothing to praise.

The sad thing is that it seems he registered to say "first".

It must feel like wining a championship game and not being allowed to heft up the trophy with your team. Then someone comes and punches you in the face.

We can only hope it's because Joystiq keeps banning the idiots who do this stupid shit.

This could really be one of those sleeper hits but because of when it released it's to late for any sort of awards this year and it will be all but forgotten come next year. I'm about 50/50 on this one and I want to see what some reviews have to say or if there is a demo thats released to get a feel for it. I'll also settle for some extended gameplay trailers.

Did a quick youtube search and came up with this video ... actually looks pretty awesome.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buj7dR5AdKY

You echo my position exactly.

kind of reminds of me of uncharted in a way but with a cool color palette mechanic.

I can see that. I really dig the Assassin's Creed style climbing.

That disguise thing is awesome.

oh wow, this game had been slipping off of my radar, but that looked amazing! Its an old trailer too, so the game should be even better. Hmmm, I'm looking forward to reviews

They totally dodged that question about whether or not an area is "complete" when you "free" it.

Wow, thanks for the link. That looks really impressive. I'm usually not fond of open world games but this looks like it has a lot of substance and a lot of thought went into it. I love the idea of "inspiring" color into areas when you complete missions. I'll wait for some reviews and hopefully a demo, but it's looking really promising.

This game was definitely on my radar (I'm especially interested in the Pleasantville-esq colorizing mechanic), but I'm going to let others bug test this when it first comes out. Something in me says that total layoffs of the development team + title instantly going gold = very little polishing and bug testing. EA not marketing the game makes that scenario even more likely, not to mention little likelihood of ever seeing patches if the game needs them.

I think I'll do the same, unless it's a slow week for releases and I need a rental. It just *smells* like it's going to be lacking the month or two of polish and bug-squashing it needed, given the situation around Pandemic.

I don't understand why EA is laying off people that produce games that net them tons of money. It may not do anything to them now, but they'll be dying before too long. They've all ready announced the entire staff of C&C4 will be going after it launches, and now this. God damn EA, let's axe the people who are doing well. Condolences to those who lost their jobs, I hope Activision picks you guys up and kicks EA in the face Chev Chelios style.

I hope they're picked up by a small company that actually respects and values their employees. However unlikely that is.

But Pandemic wasn't making money for them....that's why they're gone. Their games flopped sales wise as well as review wise, and the development of those games sucked in way too much money.

Most of Pandemics new games...sucked as well. Mercs 2, Lord of the Rings Conquest, Destroy All Humans! 3 and no doubt Star Wars Battlefront 3 would suck as well.

@Pirate: Pandemic didn't do "Destroy All Humans 3".

Personally I thought Mercs 2 was a blast to play, especialyl in co-op. Yeah, it was very buggy, but still fun. I'd take the buggy Mercs 2 over the technically profient, but utterly boring, GTAIV any day.

I thought Pandemic did do DAH3? Im fairly sure they did. It was only released in Europe and on the PS3, but im sure they did.

First indeed. First comment, first post, & first downvote.
3 birds with 1 stone. Efficient!

I shall buy this game, and wonder where the money goes.

RIP Pandemic. Mercenaries 1 was awesome. :'(

Here's hoping 100% of the game went gold if you know what I mean.

huh?

aka they actually had time to complete the game (100%) and work out major bugs and such before going gold... cause, you know, they're being shut down?

The game never looked that good to begin with (gives a mediocre vibe off similar to what WET did), now it looks like EA is sending it out to die just to try and get any bit of financial losses back. I didn't even know it was so close to release until now.

I can't believe your knocking WET.

Blasphemy!!!

Well I pretty much knew WET was going to be mediocre leading up to its launch, but I got it today from Gamefly and...well, let's just say it's already sealed back in its holder. Game was boring as all hell.

One of the few games I wanted to quit in the middle of the demo.

@Monkey Madness
Why? Wet wasn't very special. It was practically a re-packaging of stranglehold. It wasn't bad, necessarily, but there was nothing amazing about it. Mediocre and fairly boring, but competent.

I don't know why you want to compare this to Wet since Wet was garbage.

I compared it to WET because, as I said, this game gives off the same mediocre vibe to me as WET did.

WET was horrible. Normally i like games that other people hate, but goddamn! WET was just.....boring, looked like crap, controlled like crap, sounded like crap. The only thing that was good was the music!

WET is pretty boring. I shut the demo in the middle of playing it...couldn't stand it. Hopefully Saboteur doesn't suffer the same fate and is released with all the content and 0 bugs.

Seems to be the trend these days of releasing incomplete/buggy games and then patching them later online.

Think of the blimps you sick people!!!!!!

This is massively off topic, but for some reason the Dementium II link on the right isn't loading anything for me.

But I think this game will be on the 'get the demo first' list.

I doubt there will be a demo if EA isn't really marketing the game.

Waiting for reviews but hoping that it's good.

I really want this game. I'm hoping it's gonna be good. I think I'm gonna wait for it to be used at my gamestop and rent it out for a week.

It seems as if it wasn't ready and now they have been shut down, it's good enough. Mercs 1 was awesome but the second was so buggy, but there games always seem to have potential. Hope this ends up being reasonable.

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The Saboteur goes gold despite developer going dark

The Saboteur (11-10-09)

Reader Comments (68)

Posted: Nov 21st 2009 7:37PM (Unverified) said

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