Shadow Of Modor and Wonder Woman dev Monolith shut down by Warner Bros.
American studio Monolith Productions has been closed after 30 years, and the Wonder Woman game it was working on cancelled.
American studio Monolith Productions has been closed after 30 years, and the Wonder Woman game it was working on cancelled.
If there was any hope that 2025 might see an end to the widespread industry layoffs, that have seen over 25,000 developers lose their job since 2023, it was dashed pretty early on, especially with the ongoing situation at NetEase.
Now there’s more bad news, with confirmation that Monolith Productions (not to be confused with Xenoblade maker Monolith Soft) is to be closed by owner Warner Bros., alongside Player First Games, and mobile developer Warner Bros. Games San Diego.
There’s not yet any direct word on the fate of the staff but Warner has stated that the Wonder Woman game that Monolith were working on has been cancelled, so it’s likely everyone, at all three studios, has been laid off.
The news was broken by Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, who earlier in the month suggested that the Wonder Woman game had endured a trouble development and was rebooted early last year, under a new director.
The game has never been shown in public but has reportedly already cost Warner Bros. $100 million, with Schreier previously describing it as, ‘still years away from release, if it ever makes it to market’.
Monolith Productions has been around for over 30 years and employs over 100 people. It started out with first person shooters such as Blood, No One Lives Forever, F.E.A.R., and Condemned, before creating 2024’s highly successful Middle-Earth: Shadow Of Mordor and its sequel Shadow Of War.
Those games introduced the nemesis system, that saw enemies remember and bear a grudge against your player character – a clever idea that may now never see the light of day again, since Warner patented it.
Player First Games is the developer of MultiVersus and given its closure it’s not surprising to find that they have also been shuttered.
Warner describes the move as an attempt to ‘boost profitability’, which seems an unlikely outcome if they’re gutting the studios that actually make their games.
The confirmation of the news echoes comments Warner made previously about concentrating on the Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC Comics, and Game Of Thrones franchises. They call this a ‘strategic change in direction and not a reflection of these teams or the talent that consists within them.’
In confirming the cancellation of the Wonder Woman game, they said that, ‘Our hope was to give players and fans the highest quality experience possible the iconic character, and unfortunately this is no longer possible within our strategic priorities.’
The obvious problem with this ‘change in direction’ is that the only video game Warner is known for certain to have in development at the moment is Hogwarts Legacy 2, which has not been underway for long and has not been officially unveiled yet.
Rocksteady’s rumoured new Batman game is even further behind and no new Mortal Kombat games have been announced since the underperforming Mortal Kombat 1. Although a report earlier today suggests that the next project from developer NetherRealm may in fact be Injustice 3 or some other DC project.
There has never been a big budget Game Of Thrones on consoles or PC – only mobile apps – so it’s unclear why Warner keeps bringing that up.
That means that Warner will be lucky to release a major new game this decade, which is not exactly going to help with their profitability concerns.
Although many fans are already blaming controversial Warner Bros. boss David Zaslav for the closures, Schreier notes that president David Haddad has been primarily responsible for the games division over the last decade.
As he points out, Monolith had already gone five years without releasing a new game by the time Zaslav took over in 2022, having lost ‘almost its entire leadership team’ under Haddad’s stewardship.
Monolith Productions have been around for a long time (WB Games)Email [email protected], leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter, and sign-up to our newsletter.
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