Poor Warhammer Online; it just can't seem to catch the break it so desperately needs to get that real second chance it's been waiting for. Earlier today, Gamasutra broke the news that EA's latest round of layoffs hit Mythic Entertainment particularly hard; 80 of its employees were recently laid off, which consists of around a staggering 40 percent of its total workforce. Gamasutra claims Mythic is expected to make an official announcement in its quarterly report, although the website quotes several Twitter postings from former employees. What's all this mean for Warhammer Online? Nothing too positive, unfortunatley. The Gamasutra story quotes an industry analyst:

Wedbush Morgan analyst Michael Pachter said in an EA investor note on Monday, "Recent industry weakness will likely cause the company to lower its full year industry growth expectations to negative 'mid single digits' from 'flat' previously. In addition, we believe the company may take a more proactive role in additional cost cuts and may announce additional restructuring initiatives."

While the MMO hasn't specifically been addressed in light of EA's newly-focused agenda, any long-time Warhammer fan should know that the game already needs all the help it can get from a publisher's resource pool―one wrong move could push WAR over the edge, doomed to another year of dwindling subscriptions. On the other hand, we can only hope that WAR's new Endless Trial will attract both new and returning players, and that many of those players will stick around for the MMO's upcoming expansion, whenever it's released. In the mean time, let's hope Mythic keeps up the trend of continuing to patch and fix WAR, as it's been doing. Praying couldn't hurt, either.