Warner Bros. Cancels Wonder Woman Game
The Lasso of Truth will have to stay furled. Just over three years after it was announced, Warner Bros. Games has canceled the Wonder Woman game it’s been developing through studio Monolith Productions. Monolith, who created the Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor games, was also closed, as was Player First Games, the studio that developed the recently discontinued online fighting game Multiversus, and Warner Bros. Games San Diego. Though details have been scarce, the Wonder Woman game was highly anticipated, largely because it was going to make use of the Nemesis system, a program that generates hierarchies of villains and rivalries with specific enemies, which could have led to a new take on a superhero game. In a statement that you can read at TheGamer, Warner Bros. said that they are focusing on “key franchises” like DC, Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, and Game of Thrones – perhaps not realizing that Wonder Woman is a DC character – and that they won’t be able to give the Wonder Woman game the attention it needs to be great. Translated from spin to real talk, that means that the game has cost Warner Bros. $100 million so far (according to Bloomberg), was rebooted and given a new director, and was still “years away from release,” so it was eating up money that, after the sink hole that was Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Warner Bros. simply didn’t have.
That’s a shame. I was looking forward to the Wonder Woman game; the concept has lots of potential, and after the Batman: Arkham series, it seems crazy there weren’t a bunch of other DC game adaptations. Aside from a Green Lantern movie tie-in, a Young Justice game, and something called Gotham City Impostors, there were the Injustice games, which I liked, particularly the first one (the second one had about fifteen minutes of gameplay between endless cut scenes), but no solo games for the likes of Superman or the Flash or anyone else that were given the kind of care the Arkham games were. Wonder Woman was going to be the exception, but here we are, and her game is kaput after three years. And what are they developing instead? A Batman solo game, which is fine, but why not try something new as well? Maybe it’s that the Wonder Woman game just wasn’t working, considering the development hell it’s been through, which is understandable, if disappointing. But I hope they try something else with the DC brand instead of an endless parade of Batman games. We all love Batman, and I’m happy to play a new Arkham game (if that’s what Warner Bros. Games and Rocksteady have in mind), but there’s so much potential, considering they have the entire DC library at their disposal.
But it’s easy for me to say that from the sidelines, I suppose. Outside of Batman: Arkham and the Injustice games (which heavily feature the Dark Knight), Warner Bros. Games hasn’t had much luck with its recent DC output, sparse though it has been. Those three games I mentioned all bombed to the extent that researching this article was the first I’d heard of them. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was an unmitigated disaster, although anyone with half a brain could have seen that coming if they knew what the game had in store for fans. Multiversus started off promising, but it crashed and burned (and took its studio with it), which is a shame because it’s a great concept. I don’t know what went wrong with the Wonder Woman game because nobody outside of the studio knows much about it, but it was proving too costly for Warner Bros., and the behind-the-scenes overhaul plus the unspecified release date meant it would have to be a blockbuster to recoup its costs. Maybe it makes sense for Warner Bros. Games to play it safe for the time being and stay in Gotham City. But I hope they don’t have to stay too long, lest they never leave.
Let us know what you think of the Wonder Woman game getting canceled in the comments!
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