A new report has shed light on the turmoil at Warner Bros. Games, while providing an update on the various projects in the works at its developers.
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on concern about the upcoming slate of games from Warner Bros. Games following the exit of chief David Haddad.
The company has had a troubled 12 months, first with the catastrophic release of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, then the disappointing release of Smash Bros.-style brawler MultiVersus.
Warner Bros. Discovery has said Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s failure contributed to a $200 million hit to its business, and MultiVersus added another $100 million on top. Warner Bros. Games' only other recent release was Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, which failed to make an impression.
Speaking in a financial call, Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said: "We recognise [the games business] is substantially underperforming its potential right now.”
Since then, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League post-launch content has come to an end with the delivery of its year one roadmap, and Warner Bros. has announced the impending closure of MultiVersus. Rocksteady, meanwhile, has suffered significant layoffs.
There are also question marks over Mortal Kombat 1’s financial performance, although NetherRealm chief Ed Boon recently announced over five million sales and teased future DLC following the release of the T-1000 Terminator guest character.
During the same financial call, Zaslav said Warner Bros. was doubling down on just four games: Hogwarts Legacy (a sequel is already in the works), Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, and DC, "in particular Batman."
"We are focusing our development efforts on those core franchises, with proven studios to improve our success ratio," Zaslav added.
But it may be some time before fans see the result of this work. Bloomberg said Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman game is in trouble after reportedly rebooting and switching directors early last year. It’s already cost more than $100 million and is still years away from release, Bloomberg added.
Monolith’s reimagined Nemesis system (it developed the much-loved Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and its sequel) that would see Wonder Woman befriending enemies has been ditched in favor of a more traditional action adventure game. Its fate “remains in question.”
Gotham Knights developer WB Games Montreal, meanwhile, pitched a John Constantine game but it was never approved. A Flash game was scrapped after the DCU Flash film bombed. It’s now helping out with other games and is reportedly working on a pitch for a new Game of Thrones game.
Hogwarts Legacy developer Avalanche is, as officially announced, working on new content for Hogwarts Legacy as well as a sequel.
Fans of Rocksteady will be excited to hear the studio “is looking to return to Batman for a single-player game,” but according to Bloomberg, it’s years away. There is no word in Bloomberg’s report on what’s next from NetherRealm.
The upshot of this is Warner Bros. Games has, according to Bloomberg, a refreshed version of Hogwarts Legacy, a Lego game, and a few mobile games in the works for the next two years.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
