A new report by Jason Schreier at Bloomberg states that Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. is closing down three of their gaming studios and have cancelled development on a Wonder Woman game. These closures and cancellation are being done "in a bid to boost the profitability of its interactive entertainment business."
The three studios being closed include Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and Warner Bros. Games San Diego. Notice of the closures were sent to staff via an internal memo, and which was later viewed by Bloomberg. Warner Bros. is refocusing their gaming efforts and will place a bigger emphasis on franchises like Harry Potter, Batman, Mortal Kombat, and Game of Thrones.
Warner Bros. head of games and streaming, JB Perrette, had this to say in the memo:
The quality of too many of our new releases has really missed the mark. We need to make some substantial changes to our portfolio/team structure if we are to commit the necessary resources to get back to a ‘fewer but bigger franchises’ strategy.
For many, the loss of Monolith Productions probably hurts the most. Monolith is the studio that brought the world some incredible franchises and games, including: The Operative: No One Lives Forever and its sequel No One Lives Forever 2, the first two F.E.A.R. games, the Condemned games, The Matrix Online, and both Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War.
Monolith was the studio working on a new game based on the DC Comics superhero, Wonder Woman. Not too much was known about the Wonder Woman game. It would have been Monolith's first new game since 2017's Shadow of War.
Monolith was founded in 1994 in Kirkland, Washington. The studio was acquired by Warner Bros. in 2004 and met its unfortunate end by the same company.
We wish all employees across all studios the best of luck.
