EA to close Pandemic today?
Demise rumoured for Mercs studio.
Kotaku has information that EA will shut down Pandemic Studios in Los Angeles today, at the cost of some 200 jobs.
This is unconfirmed at present, and Kotaku expects the announcement to be made at 11am local time today - that's 7pm GMT.
The move is said to be part of the 1500 job cuts EA announced it would make last week, after heavy losses at the super-publisher.
At the time, Gamasutra said that the affected studios would include EA Redwood Shores, Tiburon, Mythic and Black Box. Kotaku then added Pandemic, Maxis and the Command & Conquer team at EA LA to the endangered list.
Pandemic was formed in 1998, and struck gold with the releases of squad shooter Full Spectrum Warrior and Star Wars: Battlefront in 2004, and free-roaming actioner Mercenaries in 2005.
A merger with RPG experts BioWare followed in short order, and EA bought the whole show two years later in October 2007.
But Mercenaries 2: World in Flames failed to set the world alight. A never-confirmed Batman game based on the Dark Knight film was cancelled, supposedly at great cost, resulting in Pandemic's Australian offshoot being cut loose by EA.
Pandemic has recently been working on World War II adventure The Saboteur, due for release next month on PC, PS3 and 360.