Rumour: Why Pandemic's Dark Knight never was, reason for studio's closure

Following on from yesterday's rumour that EA is to close Pandemic's Brisbane studio, Kotaku is now reporting that its Australian wing has the scoop on why the movie tie-in, Dark Knight game was cancelled and how that led to the the studio's closure.

Speaking with a number of Pandemic employees, the site's Australian Editor, David Wildgoose, found that the game went t*ts up due to the following reasons:

- 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. The game was actually coming along, albeit with major delays, but once December 2008 came and went, that was it.
• Pandemic thought an open-world game would suit the property best. But not a single person 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.

So there you have it.

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden