For fans who are waiting for Monolith Productions’ upcoming Wonder Woman that was revealed in 2021, there’s a heartbreaking update. Warner Bros. Games has reportedly cancelled the Wonder Woman game, and what’s even worse is the publisher has shut down Monolith along with Player First Games, and WB San Diego.
Jason Schreier from Bloomberg posted on Bluesky earlier today about this development alongside a full report. Kotaku received an email confirmation from Warner Bros. Games about the studio closures.
Here’s the full text taken from Kotaku’s report:
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.
Player First Games was the studio behind MultiVersus. However, the fighting game that’s supposed to rival Super Smash Bros. didn’t do so well to Warner Bros. expectations despite getting good reviews from critics. WB San Diego, on the other hand, have been shut down without having the chance to release a game. They were focused on developing games for mobile, specifically free-to-play games.
It has also been reported earlier this year by Bloomberg that the Wonder Woman game was having development trouble, thus switching to different directors in 2024. Despite that, Monolith had tremendous successes with Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel, Shadow of War. The closure of Monolith surely came a surprise to us all knowing their reputation as a gaming studio. This might lead me to speculate that the Wonder Woman game might have been geared towards something of a live-service title, and with Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League major flop in sales, this might have led Warner Bros. Games to cancel the Wonder Woman game.
This has been a difficult time for Warner Bros. and the entire DC brand. With the massive flop of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and the huge anticipation of James Gunn’s Superman film to succeed when it hit in theaters this July, Warner Bros. surely needs a big win as soon as they can.
