When Electronic Arts bought Pandemic Studios and Bioware, back in October 2007, many people were a little concerned for the health and wellbeing of Pandemic's Brisbane studios. It seems to be the thing to do, buy up a company and then close off the Australian branches...

...and from what we hear, that's exactly what's happened to the local studio, with stories now circulating that EA has pulled the plug on the developers, who were working on an un-named Wii title. As of this Friday, Pandemic's Brisbane studios will be closed. However, there is a bright side to this, in an unusually positive turn of events.

It seems that the studio has been 'set free', according to our sources, which sees the local guys keeping not only the original IP they've been working on, but also the equipment they've been using.

This recent news wasn't a surprise to employees, and today isn't the first set of cuts to the developer - EA suffered (like the rest of us) from the economic crisis late last year, which saw job losses at various developers. Earlier in the year, it was revealed in a poorly-kept secret that the local development team working on a high-profile (bat-related) title were running behind schedule and had missed a number of internal milestones, meaning the higherups cancelled the project, laying off or relocating staff members.

So - while we're still waiting on official word about just what's been going on (Pandemic's phones have apparently been disconnected), it seems that things aren't as bad as we'd once thought (but not as good as we'd hoped, either). While it seems there's no more Pandemic presence in Australia, at least, for now, there will be something exciting rising from the ashes.

(If you were curious, Pandemic's LA studios have not been affected.)