Rocksteady Studios is returning to the world of Batman, according to Bloomberg. The latest piece from reporter Jason Schreier outlines the problems currently facing Warner Bros. Games, with the publisher’s slate of upcoming games thinned by a number of problems. With Rocksteady Studios recently ending support for Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the studio is now reportedly looking to create a new Batman game, but this project is years out.
Rocksteady Studios’ last Batman game was Batman: Arkham Knight, which released almost a decade ago in 2015.
Compounding the issues for Warner Bros. Games is the current state of Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman game. First announced at the Game Awards 2021, this game was meant to marry one of DC’s biggest superhero icons with the proprietary Nemesis System that Monolith previously developed for its Middle-earth games. Years later with over $100 million spent, the game’s status is reportedly in question and it’s not clear if the project will ever launch.
Monolith Productions’ last game was Middle-earth: Shadow of War, which launched in 2017.
WB Montreal, the studio behind 2022’s Gotham Knights, is in a reported state of limbo, with the team pitching ideas like a John Constantine project and briefly working on a Flash game. Now, the studio is mainly providing support work to other teams, while leadership is working on a pitch for a Game of Thrones title.
Many of the problems the publisher is facing are blamed on former head of Warner Bros. Games, David Haddad, who reportedly acted indecisively, taking inordinate amounts of time to respond to simple requests or questions.
Not a lot of options left
With free-to-play brawler MultiVersus also being shut down, Warner Bros. Games doesn’t have many massive hits to draw on. One of the publisher’s main success stories is Avalanche Software’s Hogwarts Legacy, which has continued to sell well long after launch. Teams at Warner Bros. Games are reportedly working on a defintive edition of the game with new story content and quests, while Avalanche is officially working on a sequel.
There’s no one-size-fits all solution for the problems facing Warner Bros. Games, but at the very least, the division needs stronger leadership that can make quicker calls. The performance of this upcoming definitive edition for Hogwarts Legacy will also be extremely telling, and it might buy the publisher time to figure some other things out with studios that won’t have projects ready any time soon.
Jason’s piece is excellent (please, read the whole thing) and so many of these issues echo problems heard elsewhere across the gaming industry, with indecision and trend chasing snowballing years down the line into massive, studio-wrecking issues.
