An internal clip of what appears to be Pandemic Studios' work on a Mercenaries MMO project has surfaced. It's called 'Mercs, Inc'.

Visual effects artist Dorian Compo says it's a "multiplayer sandbox game," who was let go. Sources say it's in pre-production at EA LA.

Video game industry veteran Jeff Strain today announced the formation of Undead Labs, a Seattle-based game development studio that's working on a zombie MMO for consoles.

The news spurting from Fanfest in Reykjavik over the weekend suggests that CCP's upcoming console MMO Dust 514 won't charge players with a monthly subscription.

Instead, the game will use micro-transactions via the virtual items marketplace.

It was revealed yesterday that Funcom would be cutting 20 per cent of its workforce, which resulted in a delay for its upcoming MMO The Secret World, leaving us with a thought about what it would mean for Age of Conan.

For those of you worried, don't be. A Funcom spokesperson told us that it will have little effect on Age of Conan and its expansion: "What I can tell you is that this will have little to no effect on Conan and the expansion. The Secret World will be delayed with a few months."

Age of Conan developer Funcom has confirmed that it's laying off 20 per cent of its workforce, which will result in a delay for its upcoming MMO The Secret World. This delay could push the games release back by several months, reports E24.

Funcom haven't confirmed a solid date for The Secret World, but we did hear that it would be released in late 2010. This delay is likely to push the conspiracy-themed MMO back to an early 2011 release.

Lord of the Rings Online developer Turbine has revealed they've got console plans, with the unannounced MMO heading to the next-gen home systems in 2011 sometime.

So far the games development has cost them $20 million and will be a free-to-play affair. The console MMO has been hard to implement but some are on their way, like SOE's The Agency.

With Ensemble's fall went with it the Halo MMO project, which may have been called 'Halo Universe' according to contracted movie concept artist Dylan Cole's website.

The two artworks show "a city in the Halo Universe" he writes, noting it was for a scrapped project. Well at least we have a name for it, possibly, and two very pretty Halo arts.

Once more, another challenger has arisen to joust the law in a U.S. court room. It's over the technology behind the Massively Multiplayer Online game, and how it uses data.

Paltalk are issuing the suit against Turbine. To make matters worse, in 2006 they sued Microsoft over it's Halo multiplayer mechanics, with the giant settling the claim - 'validating' them.

The upcoming MMO, set in real world locations like London and New York, has just had some of its secrets spilled by developer Funcom. Plus there's a chance for some beta.

The Secret World is a class-free and level-free MMO, mired in urban myth and shady religious, corporate and political dealings. A personality test could earn you access to beta. Beta!

Funcom today announced a new development studio in Montreal, where it plans to build a strong development team that will work on several games in its portfolio.

The firm is going to be at PAX on Friday showing the new Age of Conan add-on and The Secret World. We'll be there to check both of these games, so expect previews to be published after the weekend.

Developer CCP has revealed more on their upcoming online console FPS title, DUST 514. It takes places in a persistent state; it's an MMO but not an EVE expansion.

It has real-time strategy elements to the game, and links in with EVE Online with players from the space opera able to fund DUST troopers, who impact the faction warfare system.

CCP today revealed DUST 514, a console-based hybrid MMO/FPS set within the EVE universe. The announcement was made during a keynote address by CCP CEO Hilmar Veigar Petursson at the Game Developers Conference in Cologne, Germany.

This will be a console exclusive, no PC version has been confirmed.

Just to confirm that Xbox Live is now down, and should remain so for up to 24 hours.

This is the planned scheduled maintenance that we mentioned last week.

At an event taking place in the UK today, Cryptic's Design Director and Executive Producer, Bill Roper, informed Strategy Informer that Champions Online would be released in the US and Europe on 14th July 2009.

Expect more details on Champions Online from this event soon.

Square Enix announced today that the first in a series of three previously announced add-on scenarios for their MMO game, Final Fantasy XI, will be available to purchase on 23rd March, 2009.

This add-on scenario, titled "A Crystalline Prophecy – Ode of Life Bestowing," will be available exclusively for online purchase through the PlayOnline Viewer, and will be priced at 9.99 Euros and £7.99. After purchase, FINAL FANTASY XI players will have access to this new content after the release of the upcoming version update in early April 2009.

Funcom product manager Erling Ellingsen today confirmed that the company would be showing off its upcoming MMO, The Secret World, at this years GDC in San Francisco.

The Secret World Game Director Ragnar Tornquist will be revealing new details to members of the press during a behind closed doors session.

Yesterday we reported that Funcom posted a $23m loss, CFO resigns, and Conan numbers under 100K, which lead us to question the development of the Xbox 360 version. Based on this bad news, we contacted Funcom to see if development of the Xbox 360 version was still ongoing.

"Yes, the Xbox 360 version is still in development. A team is working on it, and we are making progress. However, we are not setting any release dates at all just yet." Said Erling Ellingsen, Product Manager for Funcom.

Codemasters showcased some of the star players from its 2009 portfolio at its San Francisco Gamers Day event, held last night, Thursday 19th February. Featured titles included DiRT 2, FUEL, Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising, Jumpgate Evolution, OverlordII, Overlord Dark Legend and Overlord Minions.

Set to deliver a thrilling off-roading experience with extreme sports attitude, new visuals released on Strategy Informer revealed that, in addition to Utah, Malaysia and London, DiRT 2's World Tour of off-road events will take racers to a massive, spectator-packed Los Angeles sports stadium for an exhilarating rally cross event: the "Stadium King Shootout".

Capcom revealed today that on Monday, February 23rd, a brand new trailer for an unannounced title will be available on the Xbox Live Marketplace.

In order to download the new title announcement trailer, an Xbox 360 console and network connection to Xbox Live is required.

Atari has just confirmed to Strategy Informer that the upcoming release of Champions Online, a MMO that is in development for the Xbox 360 and PC, will be released in June 2009.

No further details were revealed.