The Saboteur and the castle of Lorraine, the sad story of a content that never saw the light

Me sandbox favorite (GTA style) It is not exactly a current game, but that The Saboteur from the now defunct Pandemic Studios released in 2009. Yes, my favorite is still a game from over a decade ago and I made it 100% complete on both PS3 and Xbox 360, completely absorbing its universe from start to finish.

In Europe it had the misfortune to come entirely in English, being, to top it all, the last work of that Californian studio when it closed its doors that same 2009, which caused a radical reduction in the price of the game two weeks after going out to the market. market and never had any expansion. In fact, it is known that he would have a DLC located in Lorraine Castle, which can still be accessed via a glitch to get an idea of ​​what he was going to bring.

The forbidden castle … accessible by trick

First of all, we must talk about method to access this castle, since it can only be achieved through a door, the only one we can reach by a dirt road located to the north of said fortress. To do this, you must first enter the territory of Lorraine, being precisely on its border.

The top image shows the door, the bottom one where it is located exactly.

The trick of glitch is given by means of a vehicle, preferably a sports car like Altair, placing us in parallel as close as possible to the door on the side of the driver’s seat. After a trial and error test, we will find a point where Sean Devlin, when he gets out of the car, will do it right at the other end of the castle gate, at which time he can explore it freely.

In case there are doubts, here on video thanks to the channel old v&q, dedicated to the game.

Obviously, It is an unfinished area and there is glitches graphics everywhere, along with a few bugs, being able to hit the ground face down from an apparently unstable roof that disappears in the blink of an eye, like the one in the central tower. It is part of the problem (although luckily, knowing that we can enter), since to move with ease inside the castle it will be necessary to do it almost completely from the roofs, as there are many doors closed tightly. After all, this content was never implemented.

El castillo de Haut-Kœnigsbourg in The Saboteur

Inside of the enorme castillo de Haut-Kœnigsbourg in The Saboteur

we can see three different parts: an unfinished missile silo at the western end, a tower with a communications system and a mill in the central section, and a hangar for the prototype (not included, except in the artwork official that we can see at the beginning of this article) XJ-05, a futuristic design aircraft, the work of the Nazis.

Both this boomerang-shaped armed jet and the missile silo make it clear that in this expansion our main mission would be to destroy both, in part by those high-powered anti-aircraft guns located very close to the two, which would give much game after facing the inevitable alarm inside the castle, seeing zeppelins by activating tier 3 and already fighter jets at 5.

The task is that there is no real objective in this castle, as it was not implemented due to the sad outcome with Pandemic Studios. Beyond satisfying that curiosity to see the castle from the inside, climbing over the roofs and juggling certain sections, it shows that it was left half as there are endless corridors, floating objects or the absence of the spectacular XJ-05.

Curiously, there is a vehicle, although we will not be able to get on it. It is a Nazi military truck located at a gas station right in the central half of the castle, crying out for us to blow it up. It was, more than likely, another of the objectives to “clean” within this area to “regain color” in that section of Lorraine. Because this feature was one of the funniest in The Saboteur

, destroying key targets of the Nazis to eradicate their dominance and that Sean and his people could breathe, seeing how we went from black and white to color to symbolize that freedom. It was downright addictive.

A sad and unfair ending for Pandemic Studios

Unfortunately, Pandemic Studios is not the only studio that has closed over all these years, but it had undoubtedly become a creator of cult games, such as Destroy All Humans!, the Mercenaries or own The Saboteur, his most media works being both Star Wars Battlefront, before it SAYS (Battlefield) take the witness with your reboot namesake just ten years later.

The life of Pandemic Studios was most ephemeral, having lasted just a decade in the market, its saga being well known Full Spectrum Warrior, but with the sadness that he also had to cancel other jobs before saying goodbye, such as Batman: The Dark Knight, which was to be the first open world Dark Knight game (a year before Rocksteady did the same with Batman Arkham Asylum, by the way), or the expected Mercenaries 3: No Limits.

Will there ever be a remastering of The Saboteur in charge of another external EA study? It is something that I have not stopped dreaming about since then, especially in order to enjoy the “forbidden” castle of Lorraine in conditions.