In what feels like a neverending cascade of studio closures and cancellations in the industry of late, it appears Warner Bros. Games is following suit.According to Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, Warner Bros. has canceled the upcoming Wonder Woman game and will shut down three of its studios: Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and WB San Diego.
Despite the fact that we’ve not seen anything from theWonder Womangame other thana simple teaser trailersince being announced over 3 years ago at The Game Awards, this is still quite a shock. TheWonder Womandeveloper Monolith Productions has created mostly absolute bangers since the studio was founded over three decades ago includingMiddle-earth Shadow of WarandMiddle-earth: Shadow of Mordoras well as the popular psychological horror FPSF.E.A.R.series. And, for sophisticated folks, they even developedThe Matrix Onlinewhich let’s be real, was ahead of its time.
The other two studios that will be closed as part of Warner Bros. apparent restructuring are Player First Games, the team behindMultiVersuswhich recently announced its closure, and WB San Diego.
According to reports,Wonder Womanhas been in development for years and development costs have already surpassed more than $100 million. I’ll never try to understand the complete inner workings of these corporate decisions but I would like to know what sort of state the game must have been in for Warner Bros. to opt to essentially throw away all the money that had been spent on it so far rather than getting it across the finish line. Especially from a talented and proven team like Monolith Productions.
Afterlosing more than 14,000 jobs in 2024 alone, the game industry continues to shrink each day. The closure of these three studios will likely place the count for 2025 at over 1,000. To say times are dark would be a massive understatement, and I hope things turn brighter sooner rather than later.
