After warning gamers that their upcoming action title, Saboteur, might not make it to retail shelves this year, Pandemic Studios has come through and officially announced that it will be released this year after all. Details after the jump.

EA and Pandemic's The Saboteur (PC, PS3, Xbox 360) was one of the games I was really looking forward to this year. It still is, really, only it's become one of my most wanted games for 2010, assuming that Pandemic finishes it by then. Anyway, check out a new Saboteur trailer after the jump.

Pandemic's The Saboteur has been known about since 2007 when it was first announced. As far as well can tell from screenshots and trailers, it's a gorgeous-looking game with some mighty interesting gameplay concepts, but don't count on seeing it in stores this year just yet.

If you were beginning to think that Pandemic Studios and EA's freedom-fighter action-adventure Saboteur has gone down the vaporware bin, then you're wrong. And aren't you glad? After a very long silence, EA has gone out with press release assets for the game today. Fact sheet and images after the jump.

Here's an interesting-but-not-confirmed update to the saga of Star Wars: Battlefront 3's development. DarkZero reports that the game is now no longer in the hands of Rebellion Developments, suggesting that the game is back in the arms of Pandemic Studios.

I'm beginning to think this game doesn't really exist.

You know he's evil because he has creepy, yellow eyes that stare at you from beneath a dark hood. That just screams Palpatine. But wait, that's not Palpatine, it's... Obi-Wan Kenobi? Looks like Free Radical was planning to put a twist on an old story (and an old Jedi) for Star Wars: Battlefront 3. Too bad they got axed before we could see more.

Electronic Arts has now released an official statement in response to the circulating rumors that  they have let go Pandemic Studios in Brisbane, Australia. While they did admit that their upcoming job cuts will affect studios, they did not divulge any more specific details about it.

As rumors would have it, Electronic Arts has shut down the Brisbane, Australia office of Pandemic Studios. Says a "reliable source", the shut down was more of a "find a new publisher" thing, rather than a "sorry, we'll have to kill you off" scenario.

I've been raving about it in the past for some time now: the prospect of getting to play as an Ent in LotR: Conquest is totally going to pwn. And now we have a quick clip showing Ent gameplay too! (Yeah, obliterate that siege tower, why don't you?) But more than that, the video in the full article shows a collection of battle gameplay clips and a couple other interesting things, like seeing how real grown-up wizards (i.e. Gandalf and Saruman) have a wizard duel: who needs magic spells when you can whack each other silly with your staves?

For an LotR game, LotR: Conquest is looking rather spiffy. Imagine controlling the mighty Balrog as you raze the Shire down to the ground! Oh, joy! Scream, pesky hobbitses! Scream! Yeah, being evil was never this fun! Check out the full article for a developer diary with Pandemic Studios, talking about the Evil campaign. More gameplay clips included!