In 2000, Pandemic Studios developed a game concept called “OSS”. It was set in World War II and the player was involved in the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), a United States intelligence agency, as the game’s title reveals. OSS never entered production at Pandemic Studios for unknown reasons. The platform of the game was probably not decided yet, but we can speculate at least a PC version.
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Created by Pandemic Studios, Specwarrior is a cancelled third person shooter set in the Vietnam War that was in development in 2002 / 2003. After some time the game was cancelled by its publisher, Midway. About a year later Pandemic released Full Spectrum Warrior (published by THQ), but it’s not clear if the published game used some assets from the unreleased project. Specwarrior was the reasons that lead Pandemic to file a lawsuit against Midway, because they cancelled the game to avoid payment.
The lawsuit claims Midway’s move was unwarranted, and says Midway owes money for services Pandemic completed during its months of work on the project. Pandemic is seeking damages of more than $4 million and some $750,000 in fees, according to a Reuters report.
Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!
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The Next Big Thing, also know as “No Limits Racing” is a cancelled Wii game, that was in development by Pandemic Studios Brisbane in 2008 / 2009. The gameplay was a mix between a racing game, a party game and a sandbox game, in which the player would have been able to race in a parody of L.A. streets, to jump on building rooftops, to fly in elicopters to collect items, to make crazy stunts and to raise more NPC “fans”. In July 2009, AustralianGamer released a video of the game in their YT channel.
The project was canned when Brisbane studio was closed down after being dropped by EA. As we can read on Tsumea:
Reports have come in confirming that the remaining employees at Pandemic Studios Brisbane have been let go after losing their bid in getting publisher interest for their Wii game called “The Next Big Thing” in the hope of finishing its development.
The open world reality show game was in production for the Wii by the second team at Pandemic Studios Brisbane before owner and publisher Electronic Arts let many staff go and cut loose the studio in early January. The final dozen or so remaining staff at Pandemic Brisbane were notified today that all avenues have been exhausted and were let go.
Thanks to Hey Hey, Robert Seddon and Dark ViVi for the contributions!
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Oddballs was an action game with party game elements that was in development at Pandemic Studios in 2002, for the original XBOX. The project was about some little monsters that try to eat more “blue flying chikens” than the other creatures, but only an early prototype was created before the cancellation.
Thanks to Hey Hey for the contribution!
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Batman: The Dark Knight was an open world action stealth video game loosely based on the 2008 film, The Dark Knight. The game was unofficially revealed in the summer of 2007 as being in the works at Pandemic Studios’ Australian branch in Brisbane.
This cancellation makes The Dark Knight the first Batman film made by Warner Bros. not to receive a video game translation.
As we can read on Kotaku (thanks to Robert Seddon for the link!), the development of Dark Knights had too many problems and it was probably the main reason why the studio was closed:
“Pandemic worked out a deal with Warner/DC and EA to make a Batman game. So Pandemic spent six months on pre-production of a Batman game. Then EA came in and said it had to be a Dark Knight game, so most of that six months’ work was thrown out. EA were forced to rush the project, as their ownership of the Batman rights would expire in December 2008. […] Pandemic thought an open-world game would suit the property best. But few, if any staff at Pandemic Brisbane had experience making open-world games. The decision was made to use the same engine being used for Pandemic’s upcoming WWII action title Saboteur. It’s a pretty engine, but was never built for the kind of open-world game Batman was supposed to be, and this caused a ton of serious technical issues.
Some leaked screenshots were found by Superior Version in January 2009. Thanks to Borman for the contribution!
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