High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction is a third-person shooter video game developed by Pandemic Studios and published on January 11, 2005 by LucasArts for PlayStation 2 and Xbox. The game features an open world environment, with elements of potential stealth gaming and reputation-based social mechanics, and is set during a fictitious multi-national military action in North Korea, circa 2007. The player takes control of one of three mercenary characters and completes contracts in the war-torn country for profit and to prevent a nuclear war. Critics gave favorable reviews to the game, in particular praising its focus on explosive mayhem.