Warner Bros. Shuts Down Three Game Studios, Cancels Wonder Woman Title

Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. is closing three video-game studios and halting work on a highly anticipated Wonder Woman title in a bid to boost the profitability of its interactive entertainment business.

Monolith Productions, Player First Games and Warner Bros. Games San Diego are being shuttered, according to a memo to staff viewed by Bloomberg News.

The cuts reflect a refocusing of the games division on major franchises such as Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones and DC Comics, primarily Batman.

“The quality of too many of our new releases has really missed the mark,” JB Perrette, head of games and streaming for Warner Bros., wrote in the memo. “We need to make some substantial changes to our portfolio/team structure if we are to commit the necessary resources to get back to a ‘fewer but bigger franchises’ strategy.”

In a statement to Bloomberg, a spokesperson for Warner Bros. Games said the shutdowns were “not a reflection of these teams or the talent that consists within them.”

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the Wonder Woman game was in trouble and that the Warner Bros. Games unit was facing a difficult 2025 following the underperformance of last year’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, MultiVersus and Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. Current and former employees blamed the weak slate on indecisiveness and a lack of vision under president David Haddad, who stepped down in January.

Monolith, based in Kirkland, Washington, had been making video games since 1994 including cult classics such as The Operative: No One Lives Forever and F.E.A.R. In 2014, it received critical acclaim for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, an action game set in The Lord of the Rings universe.

Player First Games was purchased by Warner Bros. last July, just before the release of its sole game, MultiVersus. Last month, Warner Bros. said it was shutting down that title following poor performance.

Bloomberg

 

[That Chris Guy]

The first game was fantastic and is still pretty fun to this day. The second one was shit-tier, ugly, soulless, cash-grabbing garbage.

Agreed. As shitty as the lore alterations were, the first one felt like GoW and not to be taken seriously. The second one however, was mean-spirited, attempted to be politically correct and really felt like it fucked with Tolkien's work.

Can't say I feel too bad about the closures. Alien vs. Predator 2 was a legit good game as was F.E.A.R., so I guess Monolith had the best track record of the three. Multiversus was dead the moment they were asking for battle passes and microtransactions. Nobody wants to play a Smash clone that charges you out the ass for every small aspect of the game. Read the room, WB.

 

[Blacklight]

There's a lot of good AA and smaller titles, nowadays. Might have to do some digging though on some of them.

Some of them like Ultrakill are crack-cocaine tier though. If you ever wanted a game in which you can punch your bullets as they leave your gun to make them explode on impact, that exists now.

Just don't look at the dev team or some of the voice actors...or the fans.

It's all full of stupid gay shit like Gabriel and V-1 being faggots for each other.

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

I guess Sucide Squad is the winner of the Wokelympics, it took down multiple studios

 

[Cat tit bingo]

Fuck that hurts, blood, shogo, tron 2.0, condemned. and f.e.a.r are are fucking amazing, sure there sequels are always cursed and there peak is past but those lord of the rings games, while not my thing, shows they still have plenty of talent. Fuck everyone in Warner Brothers I hope there get red hot barbed wire catheters shoved in and out of there dicks

 

[April Ryan]

While it is sad monolith is dead - NOLF and FEAR are classics, as a Wonder Woman fan I could not be happier that game is dead and my favourite character is not going to have to suffer losing ever more of her identity, with more trash made by people with zero understanding of her.

 

[Rome's rightful successor]

I guess Sucide Squad is the winner of the Wokelympics, it took down multiple studios

Well it's called Suicide Squad for a reason after all.

 

[Super-Chevy454]

One of the most mismanaged publishers in the entire industry. They could be rolling in cash with the amount of properties they are sitting on. Harry Potter saved them.

And some folks want to put all the blame on David Zazlav as if he was the only one responsible for this disaster.

 

[Vic Viper T301]

RIP Monolith, they made some good games back in the day. Looks like they have been working on that Wonder Woman game since the last Middle-Earth game released in 2017, so I'm guessing it was trapped in development hell by ridiculous demands from WB (remember when they put in a bunch of micro transactions in the last part of Middle Earth Shadow of War?) and now it's gonna be a tax write off cause it would have been another Concord / Avowed level flop.

 

[Gan Ying]

Does this make it more or less likely that AVP2 gets rereleased in some fashion? You pretty much have to pirate that game these days and even then it's difficult to get it to run.

 

[Snekposter]

Agreed. As shitty as the lore alterations were, the first one felt like GoW and not to be taken seriously. The second one however, was mean-spirited, attempted to be politically correct and really felt like it fucked with Tolkien's work.

Can't say I feel too bad about the closures. Alien vs. Predator 2 was a legit good game as was F.E.A.R., so I guess Monolith had the best track record of the three. Multiversus was dead the moment they were asking for battle passes and microtransactions. Nobody wants to play a Smash clone that charges you out the ass for every small aspect of the game. Read the room, WB.

God, the intro alone to the second game Shadow game...

"Hey, I'm Shelob, hot villainess and totally not a spider, I've kidnapped your ghost buddy now give me the ring."
"Don't fucking do it man, its better to let her do unspeakable things to me for all eternity than for her to have the ring."
"Don't hurt my ghost bro, here's the ring!"

 

[GamerGateSurvivor]

Part of me wants to see the Wonder Woman game because you know some female dev would've turned her into the ugliest self-insert.

I'm also glad these layoffs are hitting major gaming studios. Hopefully this paves the way for developers who actually give a shit about their customers instead of the pronoun people who openly shit on them.

 

[Cat tit bingo]

Does this make it more or less likely that AVP2 gets rereleased in some fashion? You pretty much have to pirate that game these days and even then it's difficult to get it to run.

I'm pretty sure nightdive did the majority of the work on that blood re-release so its still possible, probably a matter of if nightdive is up to it and if the Warner bean counters think it'll get them a check. Though those early lithtech games are finicky, getting shogo to run properly is a fucking nightmare, so nightdive might be hesitant to work on it.

 

[BrunoMattei]

RIP Monolith, it's been a long time since F.E.A.R. and Blood but the history was still there.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=DvJqQUSUDKI

This. RIP Monolith. Don't forget No One Lives Forever and AVP 2 (still the best Alien/Predator game), and SHOGO. It was all downhill after FEAR 3 and WB forcing them to make licensed games.

It sucks that AVP 2 and No One Lives Forever still hasn't been re-released due to rights issues.

 

[TowinKarz]

Place your bets.

Why is the WB games division in such a dire place?

Was it the failure of the Suicide Squad game?

Or, the fact that government money that trickles down to studios through DEI grants is going away?

RIP Monolith, they made some good games back in the day. Looks like they have been working on that Wonder Woman game since the last Middle-Earth game released in 2017, so I'm guessing it was trapped in development hell by ridiculous demands from WB (remember when they put in a bunch of micro transactions in the last part of Middle Earth Shadow of War?) and now it's gonna be a tax write off cause it would have been another Concord / Avowed level flop.

Thank Hera we won't have to see the horrific wokified version of her that they were toiling on, at least.

 

[ltlftp]

so I'm guessing it was trapped in development hell by ridiculous demands from WB

Based on what we know yes to the development hell but probably no to the WB meddling, at least on a micro level.

If the leaks are to be believed Monolith had no idea what they wanted the game to be and development was straight up rebooted last year. WB had already spent 100 mil on it and there is absolutely nothing to show for it.

I am too lazy to go and dig for the answers but given how old Monolith is I'd say like 90% chance this is your typical case where everyone actually talented left the studio ages ago and it's nothing but nepotism hires/promotions at this point. That is pretty much the state of every single long running North American AAA studio currently.

 

[AllieKat]

Modern gaming is dead.

Real gamers are funding some alcoholic slav to make games on a budget. For example UnderRail

 

[Buttigieg2020]

Modern gaming is dead.

Real gamers are funding some alcoholic slav to make games on a budget. For example UnderRail

Or Kingdom Come Deliverance 2!

Fuck

 

[El Chacal De La Trompeta]

Hope netherrealm studios is next

 

[Sweeter and Savoury]

Now release the source code for Blood, cowards.

meh, Fresh Supply is pretty solid.

VoidPoint really knows what they're doing when it comes to remakes.

I will pour one out for Monolith but the original devs are long gone so it would have never been the same anyway.

 

[PhoBingas]

It's honestly amazing how bad some of these people are at making money. Warner has so many good IPs which lend themselves to games and they managed to fumble the bag on all of it.

Like who even is Wonder Woman's target demographic? Teenage coomers from the late 70's and early 80s? Overweight wine aunts? Fat, middle aged women seem to be the biggest purchasers of Wonder Woman merch, at least that I've seen.