Monolith Productions, the studio behind iconic games like Fear and Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor that brought us the Nemesis system, was shut down by owner Warner Bros. last month, and its co-founder says they never saw it coming despite the game reportedly costing over $100 million and being nowhere near ready for release.
In an interview with the Guardian, founding member of Monolith Garett Price says, "I don't think I ever really considered the possibility that it would shut down one day." Neither did I.
Monolith is a studio that's been around for my entire gaming life, but since it released Shadow of War in 2017 it's produced no new games. The Wonder Woman game it was working on had been unveiled three years ago, but new leadership, a reboot, and who knows what else meant behind the scenes, development wasn't going well.
Toby Gladwell, Monolith co-founder and software engineer, says, "Our studio culture was born from a deep-seated conviction that we could accomplish anything we put our minds to."
"We pretty much just made whatever we wanted to make," Price says "We didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure out what genre would sell the best or what theme would be the most accessible to the mass market. We just tried to make what we thought was cool." Based on the games the studio did put out into the world, I'd say the team succeeded.
Unfortunately, once the company was acquired by Warner Bros. in 2005 development on new games slowed down and it worked mostly on Warner Bros. IP rather than its own original ideas. After making 12 games in the 2000s, Monolith developed just three in the 2010s. Wonder Woman has since been cancelled, but Warner Bros. does have more game development studios, so it may come back in a few years.
Warner Bros. itself doesn't seem to really know what it wants out of its games. It's most-popular game by a mile was Hogwarts Legacy, a single-player experience, but it's repeatedly stated it wants to focus on free-to-play live-service games more, even after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League left fans and ciritcs disappointed. Hopefully it figures it out before closing anymore studios.
While you're here, check out our list of the best Lord of the Rings games.
