Wonder Woman was reportedly cancelled partly because Suicide Squad and MultiVersus flopped so badly.
Earlier this week, WB Games announced that it had scrapped its solo Wonder Woman game and closed down its studio Monolith Productions for good, alongside MultiVersus developer Player First and WB Games San Diego in a move the publisher called a "strategic change in direction."
Throwing away a developer with three decades of beloved cult classics and blockbuster hits under its belt - including Shadow of Mordor, FEAR, and No One Lives Forever - was certainly a, err, decision. But we now have a more solid timeline of what happened.
Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, speaking on the Kinda Funny podcast, reiterated that former WB Games boss David Haddad's reign was turbulent and indecisive at best. His leadership's decision to cancel Monolith's new IP, which was set to expand on Shadow of Mordor's procgen narrative Nemesis System, led to the resignation of almost all of the studio's directors, meaning the team had to start on a Wonder Woman project from scratch and rebuild its team at the same time.
Wonder Woman was set to be another open-world slasher from the studio, this time reportedly featuring a remixed Nemesis System where you'd instead befriend enemies rather than continually butt heads with them. (You know, because Diana's all about love.) When that didn't work, the game was rebooted around 14 months ago to play more similarly to your linear action, God of War-ish fare.
"But by then, it was kind of too late especially because last year was so bad for the Warner Brothers Games organization," Schreier said. "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."
All that sunk money led to WB Discovery ousting David Haddad and replacing him with JB Perrette, president of global streaming and games, who's been trying to put the division back on a course for profitability. Part of his plan was to double down on the company's big names - Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat, and Batman, with Rocksteady reportedly returning to its single-player roots. The other part of that plan was to make big cuts in spending, leading to an axe at Monolith's head.
Why not check out what else is still in the pipeline with our new games of 2025 guide?
