In case you didn't hear the news, EA has axed Pandemic and the majority of the staff are out in the cold. Sad news for a studio that produced plenty of high quality software. Not only that, they only just managed to get World War 2 action game The Saboteur out the door before the axe fell. A game I've been quite keen on for the shallow reason that the main character is Irish.

Well here's some shocking news, seems Pandemic were also working on a multiplayer version of their successful Mercenaries series when they got canned called Mercenaries Inc. Rumour has it the devs involved with Mercenaries Inc have been shifted to EA's Los Angeles studio where work on the title is continuing. Just a rumour you say? Well click through for a video featuring Mercenaries Inc. gameplay.

Looks pretty good, could it rival Grand Theft Auto IV for third person sandbox multiplayer action? When you consider using cruise missiles on your enemies and getting tractor tread motorbikes air dropped to your location my feeling is hell yes! Between this and Crackdown 2 there's going to be a lot of sandbox multiplayer fun to be had in 2010.