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In the past two years, Warner Bros. Games launched two high-profile, big-budget and live service titles – Rocksteady Studios’ 2023 “Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League” and PlayerFirst’s 2024 free-to-play “MultiVersus” title. Both featured DC Comics elements prominently.
Both also famously crashed and burned. “Suicide Squad” essentially died when its first gameplay footage revealed a game heavily reliant on live-service elements. The title never got over the bad PR from that reveal. By the time the overwhelmingly negative reviews started coming in, it was done with the company ultimately taking a $200 million loss on the game.
“MultiVersus” on the other hand initially went well in its extended open beta that went for nearly a year – the game was well-liked. Within three months that beta had pulled in 20 million players, but those numbers dwindled as no new content was added.
It went offline in early 2023 and came back with a full launch in 2024. The game was rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5, which led to many features of the open beta missing in the actual release. Reviews targeted the game’s monetisation methods, which more than a few described as “predatory”.
Within a year, Warner Bros. Games ended support for the title, closed PlayerFirst Studios, and indicated the game had contributed to a $100 million writedown. In addition, Warner Bros. Interactive’s president David Haddad exited the company.
Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav called out the games division earlier this year as the weak link for his company and “substantially underperforming its potential”.
Despite all this, and the industry-wide pivot away from live service games of late, Warner Bros. Games is still determined to keep trying.
A recent job listing for an upcoming project from Warner Bros. Games is seeking an executive producer who will “lead the development of a high-quality AAA game based on one of the iconic IPs from the vast Warner Bros. and DC Comics catalog.”
Within the description of the role, the listing requires the person to “oversee all phases of development, from concept to post-launch live operations” which suggests a live service element.
What that project might be isn’t clear. A proposed “Wonder Woman” game was famously scrapped by the studio a few months ago. The company is working on a follow-up to the single-player hit “Hogwarts Legacy”.
Source: VGC
