Pandemic’s sandbox destruction plaything Mercenaries 2 is apparently getting an additional installment (and then some), according to John Riccitiello. The announcement reared its expected head during a post-earnings conference call, in which Riccitiello said:

There will be a Mercenaries 3 and, if I have anything to do with it, there will be a Mercenaries 10.

A bold statement for an otherwise completely unsurprising business strategy, as EA had announced sequels for Dead Space, Battlefield: Bad Company, and Army of Two only four days earlier.

Mercenaries 2 performed adequately on the charts, achieving a 72.6% on GameRankings. Regardless, it was a veritable cash-cow for EA, raking in 1.9 million, nearly as much as the highly regarded Spore. No other details were given, but we’ll be sure to update you as soon as they hit.

In an apparent lapse of concentration, Surfer Girl (or one of the few Surfer Girls as we presume) previously let the games of GDC ‘08 slip, or at least she made unconfirmed predictions. She has now removed all of her comments from the article, stating in an update:

Note to self: Don’t answer things when half-asleep leaves rooom for error.
Note to self: Don’t type things when half-awake leaves room for errorr.
Note to self: Proofread.
Note to self: Go back to sleep.

As with the nature of these things, any listed titles are of course rumours and Surfer Girl does not act as any sort of confirmation. And yes, we noted the irony in the spelling of “errorr” too. Get some sleep Surfer Girl.

However, nothing has changed from our predictions. The Final Fantasy XIII engine will be presented in a tutorial by Square Enix, and we’re hopeful that there’ll be extensive footage of this previously unseen game.

The Force Unleashed engine will be on show, along with a discussion on Far Cry 2’s procedural storytelling. Pandemic will be presenting Mercenaries 2: World in Flames’ destructible environment, and ID Software’s Rage engine has a high chance of making an appearance.

There will be a walk through of the Frostbite engine (Battlefield: Bad Company), in addition to three big Fable 2 announcements. You can also expect new footage of Sony’s HOME and XNA announcements from Microsoft.

There is a chance that you’ll see the first footage of Resistance 2, since Insomniac will be discussing the improvements they have made with their PS3 engine. However, if we don’t see the game at GDC, I’m certain we’ll see it elsewhere very soon.

It is unknown whether the public will get to see any of this, but at least you’ll hear about it from us.

In a response to a poster who asks what games will be at GDC this year, Surfer Girl says “YES” to seven games. These games are MotorStorm 2, Alan Wake, Too Human, InFamous, LittleBigPlanet, Killzone 2 and Gears of War 2.

There are three other games that might possibly make it to the event: SOCOM PS3, Metal Gear Solid 4, and WipEout HD.

Unlike last year, Sony and Nintendo won’t be having keynote presentations, so it might be wishful thinking to expect anything on the scale of Sony’s reveal of Home and LittleBigPlanet.

On the other hand, there is a Microsoft day booked for Tuesday, along with an hour long Microsoft keynote. Big things could be coming from the Xbox camp.

What games can we confirm for GDC? Mercenaries 2, Far Cry 2, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, and Battlefield: Bad Company.

In addition to these, Square Enix will be presenting their Final Fantasy XIII engine, and three big Fable 2 secrets will be revealed. You heard it here first.

Make sure to come to Ripten for all of your GDC coverage.

*Update* -  Surfer Girl has since retracted her predictions, blaming sleep deprivation for her original outburst.  Please read about this here, along with further titbits on what will be at GDC’08.