Warner Bros. has confirmed their Wonder Woman game has been scrapped in favour of more Harry Potter and Game Of Thrones titles.
Wonder Woman was first revealed in 2021 from Monolith, the studio behind Lord Of The Rings title Middle-earth: Shadow Of Mordor and the F.E.A.R. series. The single-player, open-world action-adventure game was due to feature an original story set in the DC universe.
However the Wonder Woman game has now been scrapped as Warner Bros. shut down Monolith yesterday (February 25). “Our hope was to give players and fans the highest quality experience possible for the iconic character, and unfortunately this is no longer possible within our strategic priorities,” said a spokesperson (via The Guardian). Last year it was reported that development had already cost more than $100million.
MultiVersus developers Player First Games were also shut down, as was WB Games San Diego. “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,” explained Warner Bros. head of games JB Perrette.
Last year, Warner Bros. confirmed it was set to focus on four gaming franchises going forward: Mortal Kombat, Batman, Harry Potter and Game Of Thrones. It was also reported that the failures of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League and MultiVersus had cost the company $300million. “We recognise [the games business] is substantially underperforming its potential right now. We are focusing our development efforts on those core franchises, with proven studios to improve our success ratio,” CEO David Zaslav explained in an earnings call.
A sequel to Hogwarts Legacy, set to tie into the upcoming HBO reboot of the series, has been described as a “high priority” for the studio, and a new Batman game has been confirmed from Arkham developers Rocksteady.
Speaking about the scrapped Wonder Woman game, consultant Gail Simone said: “The game was gorgeous and expansive. It was beautiful to look at. Every effort was made to make this not just a great game, but a great WONDER WOMAN game. A showpiece epic. I know there’s a lot of finger-pointing going on, but everyone I worked with from Monolith and WB both was enthusiastic and supportive. Everyone wanted to make the best game ever.”
“Sometimes, you give your all and it doesn’t work out,” she added.
In other news, Xbox has confirmed the long-awaited Fable reboot is no longer coming out this year.
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