Warner Bros. Games is making big cuts, closing three studios — Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and WB Games San Diego — and canceling its long-in-development Wonder Woman game, the publisher told employees on Tuesday. All projects from those studios have been canceled.
Monolith Productions developed Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Shadow of War, and was working on Wonder Woman. Player First Games was the developer behind the recently scrapped fighting game MultiVersus. WB Games’ San Diego studio was working on what it once described as “an exciting new AAA, free-to-play, cross-platform game.”
Employees at Warner Bros. Games studios were informed of the closures and game cancellations in a communication from executive JB Perrette, the CEO and president of global streaming and games for Warner Bros. Discovery.
In an email to employees obtained by Polygon, Perrette cited a “disappointing 2024” for the company’s games division, saying that it would focus on four franchises going forward: Harry Potter/Hogwarts Legacy, Mortal Kombat, DC (“primarily Batman when it comes to single character-led games but may include select other opportunities as the new DCU gets built”), and Game of Thrones.
Regarding the now-scrapped Wonder Woman, which was announced in 2021, Perrette said the game no longer fell “within our strategic priorities.” Perrette said the company is looking to “repurpose our talent where possible” by reassigning employees to open roles.
In addition to focusing on “fewer but bigger franchises,” Perrette said Warner Bros. Games aims to return to growing its mobile games revenue as well as “regain our credibility and swagger at producing great games.” Perrette said of recent releases from WB Games, “the product-market fit and quality of too many of our new releases has really missed the mark.”
“We need to and will do better for our fans first and foremost, and also because regaining that credibility is critical to us securing even more investment in Games in the years to come,” Perrette wrote. “Getting our swagger back happens one high quality game release at a time, and our financial credibility gets rebuilt one fiscal quarter at a time — delivering what we said we would deliver, and no big negative surprises.”
Over the past year-plus, Warner Bros. Games has delivered a string of misses, including Rocksteady Studios’ Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, a relaunched MultiVersus, and Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. In January, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment president David Haddad announced his exit from that role after more than a decade leading WB’s games division.
Reached for comment, a spokesperson for Warner Bros. Games provided Polygon with the following statement:
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.