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Wonder Woman
GRTV News - Warner Bros. shuts down three of its game development studios
Wonder Woman has been cancelled as Monolith Productions has been shut down as part of this.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of GRTV News. Today's news was not something I expected to be talking about today, otherwise I probably wouldn't have recorded yesterday's GRTV News or I would have based it on something else. Because yesterday we were talking about Warner Brothers and how they're trying to basically better integrate the DC Studios productions and what they're doing with the new DC Universe and also Warner Brothers Games Developers and it sounded like, you know, quite exciting, but some challenges they'd have to navigate. Then by the end of the day, news broke that Warner Brothers is shutting down three of its game developers, two of which are currently working on DC, one very DC game, another one partly DC game and a third one that's about something a little bit less different. But the point is that Warner Brothers has axed even more of its games division and the really big news is that Wonder Woman has been cancelled. So let's dive on in. So yeah, Warner Brothers Games closes three studios, Wonder Woman game cancelled, Warner Brothers Games continues to struggle in the gaming industry with three more closures and cancellations. So if you were hoping to get some good news from the Wonder Woman game, we have bad news unfortunately. Warner Brothers Games has announced the closure of multiple studios, Monolith Productions, Player First Games and Warner Brothers San Diego. The closure of Monolith also means the cancellation of the Wonder Woman game, confirms Jason Schreier for Bloomberg. Monolith Productions was founded in 1994 and got acquired by Warner Brothers in 2004."
"Their biggest hits are two of the Lord of the Rings based games, Middle-Earth Shadow of Mordor or Middle-Earth Shadow of War, both of which were critically acclaimed and successfully commercially and famous for introducing the nemesis system so revolutionary that Warner Brothers actually patented it. Their Wonder Woman game was announced at the Game Awards in 2021 but we never got any news about it, only rumors about travel development after this. So Player First Games were the creators of Multiverse, a free-to-play fighting game inspired by Super Smash Bros. with characters from DC Comics, Looney Tunes and other Warner Brothers franchises. So they will get to leave the day they are delisted on May 30th 2025, only one year after its launch or it's it's kind of like second launch. Anyway, Warner Brothers Games San Diego was a division founded in 2019 dedicated to mobile games. All three studios will be closed according to Jason Schreier. This comes a day after James Gunn and Peter Safran, CEOs of DC Studios film division, confirmed they were speaking with Warner Brothers Games developers to create video games based on DC properties. It is rumored that one of them is a new Batman Arkham game from Rocksteady. However, Wonder Woman won't take flight after reportedly spending 100 million dollars on it."
"Um, a lot of a lot of thoughts about this. A lot of thoughts about this. I, I've already spoke multiple different times in the past about Multiverse and the way that game's been handled and how it's not exactly been handled in the best of ways. You have a really successful launch, you don't really support it, you take the game offline, you relaunch it, it's not as popular, all of a sudden it gets closed down and there's issues with that. Um, but player first games didn't deserve this. They didn't deserve to be acquired by Warner Brothers and then shut down a year, two years later. Um, Monolith as well. They've been struggling a bit with this Wonder Woman game clearly, but they, they, they've been, they developed some great games in the past."
"Fear, the Middle Earth series, they create some really revolutionary ideas and tech and now they're gone as well. And Warner Brothers are still going to own the Nemesis system patent as well. The Wonder Woman game's gone as well. It's an interesting one. I always find that those sort of really super characters like Superman, I don't necessarily think they, they translate into a video game format all too well because they're kind of like bosses in themselves, the characters. Um, but this is, this is just a terrible, terrible situation across the board to have a game like this get announced three years ago. No significant news about it since. And now the game's been canceled and the developer has been shut down. And Warner Brothers San Diego has also been caught in this, um, in this hurricane of disaster as well. Uh, granted it's a mobile division, but if you play any of the Warner Brothers mobile titles, they're probably going to be affected by this change now. Now this leaves a very tight knit group of developers that, uh, that Warner Brothers games actually owns with these shutdowns in mind. Um, I recently reported or covered the report that Jason Schreier mentioned. And, um, there were like sort of five main developers. He talked about Rocksteady who are still doing their Arkham things. We, we hear, um, Monolith is obviously done. Now player first games is done. Now. Uh, the other one really is avalanche, which is a, uh, Hogwarts legacy guys. Now that's still working on a Hogwarts legacy sequel and more content for the first game. But if that game doesn't sell as, as well as the first game did, you have to wonder if they're on the chopping block as well as Rocksteady."
"Now, no one's safe at Warner Brothers. It's, it's a really just horrendous decision to do all these things that they've done as of late. And I, there's some Warner Brothers games have given us some really exciting titles in the past. And I, there's some really interesting games I enjoy that's come from them. So this, this, this one really stings these decisions that have been made. And it, to me, it just goes to show just how, how lacking of understanding of how the video game sector works, the focus that the executives at Warner Brothers really are because they keep, they've, they've gone through this routine of constantly cranking out just games that have just missed the mark or have been so wide off the mark that they've never had any chance of succeeding. Things like, um, the Harry Potter broom, uh, Quidditch game. I can't remember Quidditch champions. That's it. Like Warner Brothers games, the way they've handled things over the past, let's say like five years or something, it might be one of the most colossal failures I've ever seen in the video game space. Um, they haven't, aside from Hogwarts Legacy, they haven't really had a hit in a, in a long time. So, you know, this basically leaves, puts a lot of pressure on Avalanche to succeed with Hogwarts Legacy, Rocksteady to succeed with their next Batman game, if they get that far, cause it's probably like five years away and they're already in the red because of Suicide Squad. And then, uh, things like Netherrealm with Mortal Kombat, maybe Injustice. And then Warner Brothers games, Montreal, that studio is still open, but their last title was Gotham Knights. Apparently they were trying to pitch a Flash game, didn't work out. Now they're trying to pitch a Game of Thrones game. A lot of question marks about the future of Warner Brothers games division at this point. And, um, not, doesn't leave a great taste in your mouth after hearing this either. So the key thing to note, recapping is, um, Wonder Woman has been cancelled. Monolith Productions has been shut down."
"Motorplayer First Games has been shut down following the previous announcement that, uh, Multiverse would be shutting down at the end of May. And Warner Brothers games, San Diego has also been shut down as well. So, um, pretty miserable start to the day, all things considered.
But anyway, I'll be back now tomorrow for the next GRTV News of the week. So until then, hope you enjoy the rest of your Wednesday and I'll see you all in the next one. Take care, everyone."
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