But a few weeks ago, Jason Schreier published a piece for Bloomberg about the turmoil that Warner Bros. video game branch has been under during the reign of outgoing executive David Haddad who has been with the division since 2015. Now it appears that things were even worse than what Schreier originally reported. Today, WB Games added more fuel to the ever growing dumpster fire that is the ongoing studio closures and layoffs in the interactive media space.

via Warner Bros. Games YouTube

Revealed during the Game Awards in 2021 with a brief teaser trailer, Wonder Woman from Monolith Productions has officially been cancelled. The developer behind the axed title – who in the past decade worked on the pair of Middle-Earth titles – has also shut down with it. Player First Games, whose first and last game was the free-to-start platform brawler MultiVersus is joining them. WB Games officially acquired them not even a year ago during the summer of 2024. Player First Games reported to WB Games San Diego upon coming under the Warner Bros. umbrella and they too are no more.

Warner Bros. Games released this statement to the press:

“We have had to make some very difficult decisions to structure our development studios and investments around building the best games possible with our key franchises — Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC and Game of Thrones. After careful consideration, we are closing three of our development studios – Monolith Productions, Player First Games and Warner Bros. Games San Diego. This is a strategic change in direction and not a reflection of these teams or the talent that consists within them. The development of Monolith’s Wonder Woman videogame will not move forward. 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. This is another tough decision, as we recognize Monolith’s storied history of delivering epic fan experiences through amazing games. We greatly admire the passion of the three teams and thank every employee for their contributions. As difficult as today is, we remain focused on and excited about getting back to producing high-quality games for our passionate fans and developed by our world class studios and getting our Games business back to profitability and growth in 2025 and beyond.“

There’s no sugar coating it: this is another devastating blow to an industry that has already crushed the souls of countless talented individuals and turned away just as many from even starting their journey due to the instability inherent with video game creation. All are at the mercy of overpaid CEOs who spend their days trying to increase a balance sheet chasing trends they don’t even understand, all the while they ignore the beloved properties they own and destroy the lives of the people who enrich them.

Today’s news is tragic, but there lies some hope for the future. ComicBook, who attended a recent DC Studios event, broke the news that James Gunn and Peter Safran, who run the newly christened multimedia department, have had talks with WB Games’ existing studios about creating new DC Comics inspired titles.

Said Safran “We work incredibly closely with JB Perrette who runs that division…It’s really the first time its ever been this way at Warner Bros. James and I sit with the guys that run the studios under JB whether it’s NetherRealm or Rocksteady. We sit with them and we talk about characters and stories that we’re interested in and that they’re interested in.”

James Gunn added “We see designs for the projects in their very earliest stages,…We talk about those, we talk about what the story might be and we’ll say ‘Well, you maybe you want to go this way because we’re planning on maybe doing something with this character.’”

VIA POLYGON