By now, you likely already know that Monolith Productions, the studio behind Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, its sequel, and the creators of the incredibly innovative Nemesis system, has been shut down by Warner Bros. before it could finish its Wonder Woman game. This closure came alongside those of MultiVersus developer Player First Games and WB San Diego, which never even got to announce a game.
Layoffs and studio closures, while now par for the course in the video game industry, remain painful to witness. Countless people are out of jobs, projects underway will never see the light of day, and a highly anticipated Wonder Woman game that its devs have called “truly special” and “gorgeous and expansive” has been cancelled. Our Editor-in-Chief Stacey Henley speculated on the reasons for this specific cancellation, but we’ll likely never know for sure why this decision was made.
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Monolith is More Than An IP Machine
Again, studio closures are common nowadays, but I’ve been particularly taken aback by the callousness of these particular layoffs. A statement from Warner Bros. says that the closures were to “structure our development studios and investments around building the best games possible with our key franchises – Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC and Game of Thrones”, that it recognises “Monolith’s stories history of delivering epic fan experiences through amazing games”, and that it is “focused on and excited about getting back to producing high-quality games… and getting our Games business back to profitability and growth in 2025 and beyond”.
There are a lot of things to be upset about in this statement. Firstly, Monolith’s contribution to the video game canon is described as “epic fan experiences” – good god. To reduce Monolith to just the Middle-Earth games is unfair, let alone to reduce it to that while using one of the most striking examples of corporate marketing speak I’ve ever seen. While I don’t have personal experience with the studio’s work, my colleagues Jade King and Joe Parlock have each written about the studio’s colourful history and impact over its 30 years of operation.
Video Games Don’t Matter, Money Matters
Secondly, studio closures being used to facilitate an increased focus on specific franchises is infuriating. The focus on the company’s IP isn’t surprising, because it’s not new – after all, MultiVersus and Wonder Woman are based on existing IP, not to mention many of the past games from Monolith. But it looks like WB hasn’t learned from its previous IP failures that “key franchises” aren’t a guarantee of success. After all, look what happened to Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, born out of a desire to make as much money as possible and crushed under the boot of a lack of profitability and ignorant desire to chase live-service trends.
Thirdly, it’s egregious that profitability and growth should be mentioned in the same statement as such high-profile layoffs, especially considering the news comes a mere two days before WB Discovery’s quarterly earnings update. We can’t know for sure, but it looks like it’s got less to do with the games themselves than preemptively pleasing shareholders. As usual.
Companies like Warner Bros. aren’t in the games industry because they care about games, they’re in games for the money – as if there’s very much of it in the industry left to go around. That’s why the Wonder Woman game is dead, why MultiVersus is dead, and why we’ll never see what WB San Diego has to offer. It’s why countless studios and games have been axed in the last few years. It’s why we’ll see countless more in the future.
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We’re Never Getting Another Studio Like Monolith Productions
As the developer shuts down we look back on its history of fantastic games.