Xbox Gaming in South Africa

When EA Games recently laid off staff across the board, Pandemic Studios was one of the hardest hit developers, losing around 200 people and being cut down to what EA calls a 'core creative team'. But this hasn't stopped production, with EA announcing that Pandemic Studios are working on a follow up to Mercenaries 2, under the working title, Mercs Inc.

"We are very excited to announce a new instalment in the popular Mercenaries series because it demonstrates our continued commitment to Pandemic's rich catalogue of intellectual properties," said Nick Earl, Senior VP and Group General Manager at EA. "From the studio at EALA, a core creative team is forging new ground and conceptualizing new ideas for this exciting franchise."

So far EA have been tight lipped on what changes we can look forward to, but it's probably a safe bet to expect a healthy dose of weapons, explosions and city-wide destruction.

Mercs Inc. will be Pandemic Studios first game since the restructuring, and it will be interesting to see what affect the down sizing will have on the new iteration.