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The Saboteur goes gold despite developer going dark

Ben Gilbert — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:30:00 EST

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]

Gallery: The Saboteur (11-10-09)

The Saboteur goes gold despite developer going dark originally appeared on Joystiq on Sat, 21 Nov 2009 19:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pandemic: The Saboteur announced too soon, EA acquisition bought 'more time'

David Hinkle — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:55:00 EST

Click image to sneak into our gallery

It's hard to believe, but The Saboteur was announced around this time ... in 2007. Crazy, right? We can hardly believe it's been so long, and since it was announced, we really haven't had much to talk about. Thanks to Tom French of Pandemic, we now know it's because the game was revealed too soon. Sabotaging The Saboteur, amirite?

In speaking with VG247, Pandemic's Tom French said the game is pretty ambitious and that the title was just revealed too soon. At the point where it was announced, most of the title was still on paper, with only a "small section of the world even built." Then, EA acquired Pandemic, which French said really helped The Saboteur out, allowing the team working on it to grow through inheriting people from other projects (he cites folks coming on board from Mercenaries, for example). French said the additions to The Saboteur team have helped "refine all those little details that we've been talking about but nobody had time to touch."

Gallery: The Saboteur

Pandemic: The Saboteur announced too soon, EA acquisition bought 'more time' originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:55:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pandemic finds The Saboteur, launches official site

Randy Nelson — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:45:00 EST

Announced sometime around the end of WWII itself, The Saboteur has managed to survive EA Pandemic's recent shake-up and is on track for 2009 release on 360 and PS3. We never really saw much of the game to begin with, so comparisons between how it looks now and did back then are difficult to draw. According to info on the newly launched official site, though, the core gameplay is still very much same as it ever was.

By that, we mean the "Will to Fight" mechanic, where more Parisians will join the player's fight against the Nazis as the city is gradually liberated. The site also makes a bullet-point out of the fact the game is the first to feature an open-world recreation of Paris. Hmm, we'll go with the former as the more exciting of the two "features." Unfortunately, all of the site's screenshots are tragically small and low-quality. Sabotage perhaps?

Pandemic finds The Saboteur, launches official site originally appeared on Joystiq on Thu, 02 Apr 2009 02:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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EA: Saboteur, Dragon Age to miss '08

Randy Nelson — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:30:00 EST

Filed under: PC, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, RPGs

Delays are never good, but in the case of two titles emerging from EA's acquisition of BioWare and Pandemic, it's nice to see the publishing giant giving its studios the time they need to get the job done right. In particular, we're talking about BioWare's all-new original RPG title, Dragon Age, and Pandemic's WWII action game, Saboteur, both of which EA boss John Riccitiello revealed are now 2009 titles during a speech Tuesday.

BioWare, hot off the PC release of Mass Effect, has been crafting its first fantasy RPG since Neverwinter Nights for some time. Saboteur showed substantial promise when we saw it last year; it's a third-person action game set in Nazi-occupied France, starting off in black & white, with color appearing as Nazis are driven out of areas of Paris.

EA: Saboteur, Dragon Age to miss '08 originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 20 Jun 2008 00:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Mercenaries 2 designer explains delay

Alexander Sliwinski — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:45:00 EST

Filed under: PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure

Pandemic Studios is ready to explain why Mercenaries 2: World in Flames was delayed until 2008. In an IGN interview, Pandemic pres. Josh Resnick says they delayed the game so that "every corner of our vast, open-world, highly explosive gameplay is completely polished." He says they are not adding anything else to the game but are merely fixing bugs "to make gamers proud that they own a copy of Mercenaries 2 by making the highest quality next-gen open-world experience the world has ever seen." Well, hopefully Pandemic can own that title for a while before GTA IV comes out around the same time.

Did the multi-platform development cause the delay? Resnick says , "Not at all." He says that all the different version are "shaping up nicely." He also says that the delay has not affected the development of Saboteur and it's still planned for 2008. There's a lot of fluff in the interview, but at least the developers have spoken on the issue instead of just letting the fanboys blame the PS3 for every game with multi-platform development.

Mercenaries 2 designer explains delay originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 24 Sep 2007 18:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pandemic talks about Saboteur

Nick Doerr — Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:30:00 EST

Filed under: Previews, Interviews, News

Saboteur is a stealth-action game developed by Pandemic studios about a dude who decides to join the French Resistance after Nazi's occupy France. Yeah, you heard right. Nazi's. That means another World War II title. Is it bad to get saturated to the point where the word "Nazi" just makes us roll our eyes in annoyance? Anyway, here's an interview with IGN about the game. We'll give you some highlights.

About the story: "There are some very specific Nazis that kill Sean's friends and family. Sean goes out of his way to find them and make them pay. He gets tied into the bigger conflict slightly, like the French Resistance and the SOE, and there is this backdrop of this larger global war that's happening. But at the end of the day, we're interested in just telling Sean's story of personal victory and triumph over these Nazis."
They make big games, but here's a heads-up on the scale for this one: "We're actually modeling both all of Paris and all the way out to the coast, as well as the German mountains, so there is a large territory that we're including."
Citizens will fight alongside you or avoid you, depending on the morale in France against the battle overall.
The game will include stealth elements, but will be paced like an action game (we're thinking like the third Prince of Persia from their description). There'll be a few places to hide like rooftops or sewers.

Wow, that was a really boring post. Aren't you guys glad we usually aren't that stiff around here? We're not insulting any other blogs/sites out there, but after re-reading this it occurred to me that writing articles in this fashion just... fail to interest and entertain. Anyway, Saboteur seems like it will both interest and entertain, so we'll keep a look out for it. Hey, weren't saboteurs the little guys in Dune, on the Ordos side of things, that would enter a building and blow it up? How appropriate.

Pandemic talks about Saboteur originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 11 Apr 2007 11:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Pandemic unveils Saboteur, a 'different' WWII shooter

Ross Miller — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:29:00 EST

Filed under: First Person Shooters

The April issue of Game Informer is bringing word of the latest project from Pandemic Studios (Destroy All Humans, Mercenaries). It turns out it will be a World War II shooter entitled Saboteur.

Another World War II shooter, eh? Before you join us in a collective sigh, Pandemic asserts that this is different than other shooters out there. How so? There will be action, stealth, an open-ended world, and -- here's the differentiator -- a black-and-white color scheme to indicate which areas are controlled by Nazis.

It certainly is artistic, but we can't stop thinking about the film Pleasantville. We like the concept, but we'll reserve judgment until we see, in video, how well they pull off the effect. No word on which "secret project" -- B, Q, X, Y or Z -- this was, but they are all good choices in Scrabble. There's a 2008 release date mentioned but no console specified. Given the developer's history, they might end up playing coy for a good while.

Pandemic unveils Saboteur, a 'different' WWII shooter originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 19 Mar 2007 19:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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