Warner Bros. Cancels Wonder Woman Game, Closes Three Studios

ign.com:

Warner Bros. is canceling its planned Wonder Woman game and shutting down three studios: Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and WB San Diego, according to Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier.

Schreier broke the news on Bluesky today, followed by the release of a full report on Bloomberg. Shortly after Schreier's post, WB confirmed the shut downs to Kotaku in a statement:

Earlier this year, another Bloomberg report suggested Wonder Woman was in trouble after rebooting and switching directors in early 2024. This came amid larger struggles at the company's gaming division, including layoffs at Rocksteady, the lukewarm reception to Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and the shutdown of MultiVersus.

And even more recently, WB Games has appeared to undergo a restructuring of sorts, as long-time games head David Haddad announced his departure from the company, and rumors circulated that the division might be sold off.

Specifically, this move represents a blow to WB's DC universe-connected gaming efforts. Notably, just yesterday, James Gunn and Peter Safran said in a presentation that it would be "a couple of years" before the first DCU video game.

With this closure, the games industry loses three incredibly storied studios. Monolith Productions, which had been working on Wonder Woman, was founded in 1994 and acquired by WB in 2004. It's best-known for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel, Shadow of War, the former of which pioneered the lauded Nemesis system that WB successfully patented in 2021.

Player First Games, a newer studio established in 2019, was responsible for MultiVersus. The game was well-received critically and saw launch success, but underperformed relative to WB's expectations. WB San Diego, similarly, is a newer studio established in 2019 with a focus on mobile, free-to-play games.

These shutdowns continue a trend going back roughly three years of increasing games industry layoffs, project cancellations, and studio closures. In 2023 alone, it's