Summary
- Suicide Squad and MultiVersus losses led to the cancelation of the Wonder Woman game by Monolith.
- Rocksteady faced layoffs after Suicide Squad’s failure, contributing to the downfall of the Wonder Woman game.
- David Haddad’s decisions, including canceling Monolith’s new IP, led to this series of unfortunate events.
It’s no secret by now that Suicide Squad: KIll the Justice League has been a major commercial disappointment for publisher Warner Bros. Games. But it seems the game flopped so hard, and that’s partially responsible for the Wonder Woman game by Monolith being cancelled too.
Just a few days ago, a report surfaced (which Warner Bros. later confirmed) that the Wonder Woman game in development has been canned, along with shutting down multiple first-party studios at Warner Bros. games division.
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Suicide Squad and MultiVersus Flopping Hard Helped Put The Nail In The Coffin For Wonder Woman Game
Veteran news reporter and reliable insider info leaker Jason Schreier of Bloomberg recently went on the Kinda Funny podcast (via Games Radar) to talk about Warner Bros. Games and the downfall of Monolith.
Schreier shares that former WB Games chief David Haddad was an indecisive leader. His decision to cancel Monolith’s new IP, which was focused on expanding Shadow of Mordor’s trademarked Nemesis System, led to the resignation of almost all of Monolith’s directors. This meant the studio had to start work on a new Wonder Woman game from scratch and rebuild its team simultaneously.
Wonder Woman was originally conceived as an open-world game. It featured a different kind of Nemesis System, where players would befriend enemies rather than fight them until they were dead. Monolith rebooted the game 14 months ago so that it would play as a more linear action similar to God of War.
Schreier shares, “But by then, it was kind of too late, especially because last year was so bad for the Warner Brothers Games organization. Last year Suicide Squad was a humungous flop – they wrote off $200 million because of that. MultiVersus and Quidditch Champions, also both flops, [they] wrote off another $100 million because of that”
This string of flops led to Haddad’s forced resignation from the company. Taking over the games division is JB Perrette, president of global streaming and games, who has now been tasked to push the games division back into profitability. Perrette’s initiative is to focus on the company’s big brands like Harry Potter (Hogwarts Legacy sequel), Lords of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat, and Batman — something the company talked about earlier this month.
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This is a sad ending for Monolith Productions, a studio that released some top-tier hits, such as Shadow of Mordor and FEAR.
It’s worth noting that two of WB Games’ latest major flops — Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and MultiVersus — are both live service games. Hopefully, this is a good reminder for the company’s execs to stop chasing trends and, y’know, develop great games.
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Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is a co-op looter shooter following a group of rag-tag supervillains who are forced into defending Metropolis from an alien invasion — and a mind-controlled Justice League.
Action
Adventure
Open-World
- Franchise
- Suicide Squad
- Released
- February 2, 2024
- Developer(s)
- Rocksteady Studios
- Engine
- Unreal Engine 4
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Strong Language, Violence
- How Long To Beat
- 10 Hours
