Pandemic Studios has confirmed that it is working on a title based in the Mercenaries franchise. The game is in early stages of development and has been brought over to EALA. Mercs Inc. is the working title for the game and will be the first Pandemic title to be released from the EA studios.

“We are very excited to announce a new installment 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.”

Here is a video that leaked yesterday:

Mercenaries Inc. Demo from Dorian Compo on Vimeo.

The first thing that I noticed when I started up the game was that one of the three playable characters was an Asian female named Jennifer Mui. While she is probably more Eurasian – her features are Asian-like and she speaks with an English accent – it is still nice to see a game like this feature one of the playable mercenaries as an ethnic female. Of course, I chose the play the game as her. Each playable character in the game has a special ability. Mattias Nilsson regenerates health faster, Chris Jacobs can carry more ammo, and Jennifer Mui can run faster. While the special ability may not make the hugest of difference in your game, each one caters to a particular playing style. All characters follow the same story line that is centered around the chosen character.

You are in the middle of a war-torn Venezuela. There are many different factions that are all trying to gain control. You can chose to join forces with them or not, but working with them is one of the best ways to gain information, as well as weapons, cash, vehicles, and supplies. Each faction offers contracts that pay out cash when completed. Completing contracts earns you cash as well as the faction’s men and other resources. If a faction is friendly, you can get discounts on items in their shops and if in a vehicle with empty seats, all you have to do is honk and nearby members of the faction(s) will jump in to your aid. There are three types of factions, friendly, neutral, and hostile. Neutral factions will offer you work and hostile factions will attack you. You can turn hostile factions into friendly ones by completing contracts.

The game offers a massively large and open world. There are a range of terrains, like jungles, cities, mountains, and lakes that stretch through the country of Venezuela. You can play the game solo, you can invite a friend to join you in your quests, or you can connect to the EA servers and make your game joinable to anyone. You can pick and choose your missions and take the jobs that will give you the most money for the job. There are plenty of weapons and vehicles to wreak havoc and leave a path of destruction behind you as you advance. You can take down any building in the game – piece by piece or complete obliteration. Not only fun and cool, but this can be a part of your strategy. The water is also a part of the game terrain – you can swim in it, fly over it, or race across it on a boat!

The game is comparable to the Grand Theft Auto series of games. It is an open world with missions to complete. One of the differences is that while you can still run around and kill innocent people, you are charged money every time you do it. You learn very quickly that your homicidal rampages could end up bankrupting you. Completing contracts and missions advances you further in the game as well as earns you cash – a main motivator for a merc – as well as opens up more vehicles, weapons, and factions to use in other missions.

See the rest of April’s review over at Girls Got Game.