PS3 Mercs 2 Home support doubtful

The PS3 version of upcoming open world blast-em-up Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is unlikely to support Sony’s online 3D hub Home.

Speaking to VideoGamer.com at a recent EA Games label event in London, Pandemic’s Cory Lewis said the studio was currently focused on online coop and doesn’t know enough about Home “to be deep in it”.

Home, which is scheduled to release as an open beta this Autumn, has suffered from a number of delays as Sony refines the service. In April Sony announced plans to expand the PlayStation Home Closed Beta test into summer 2008 in order to “refine the service to ensure a more focused gaming entertainment experience than what it is today”.

Lewis told VideoGamer.com that Pandemic looked at Home “a while ago” but shifted its attention away from it to finishing Mercenaries 2 when “it seemed like their (Sony’s) plans slowed down”.

“I would say realistically that’s (Home) not going to be a focus for us just because we want to keep our focus on what the product is,” Lewis told VideoGamer.com. “I know we’re not putting a ton of emphasis on it right now. For future products we’ll get to a place where that’s obviously much better integrated. The online coop is definitely our core focus as far as online goes and then we’ll also have other stuff to announce about future online stuff down the road. The short answer is we don’t know enough about it right now to really be deep in it but that’s not to say we won’t do anything either.”

He added: “It looks great. It looks like a cool way to extend the universe. We actually were looking at Home a while ago really in depth and then it seemed like their plans slowed down and we shifted our attention away from it toward just finishing the product.”

Check out the full interview with Pandemic’s Cory Lewis here, and, when you’re done with that, make sure to pop over to our hands-on preview of Mercenaries 2: World in Flames.