We will never know exactly what happened behind the scenes ofMonolith’s Wonder Woman game. First announced in 2021, it has had no real update ever since, aside fromminor leaked concept art, squashingrumours about its live-service destiny, andconfirmation of the Nemesis System, whichmay now die with it. This week, we got the first concrete update in some time - unfortunately, this concrete was in the shape of boots. TheWonder Womangame is no more.
It’s hard not to feel a little angry about this. Righteous anger on behalf of those at Monolith who have been laid off, and on behalf of those previously at Monolith who built the studio up to greatness, only to see it snuffed out off the back of a single failure. But also a more selfish anger - a Wonder Woman game from the team who brought usShadow of Mordorshould have been excellent. Wandering through the ruins of this digital Themyscira, it’s difficult to understand how it all went so wrong.
Who’s To Blame For Wonder Woman’s Failure?
The obvious temptation is to lay the blame at the door of the suits. The big picture decision makers at Warner Bros. who, like most executives, are motivated entirely by cash. Looking at howMultiVersusfloundered tostay alive at the cost of its own goodwill, the weird systems shoved intoGotham Knightsso that it quacked like a live-service game, and the trainwreck ofSuicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, there’s a pretty obvious pattern here.
But then, youcanlook at those games. None of them were anywhere near as good as their foundation had potential to be, but they existed. They shipped. They were finished. What went so wrong with Wonder Woman that it couldn’t even muster a trailer over three years on since its single character model reveal, and what happened in the four years between Shadow of War launching and Wonder Woman’s reveal? Either Monolith got a much rougher deal than most at Warner Bros., or the pressure led to internal mismanagement that set the project back even further. Neither seem particularly satisfactory.
That’s why I want to focus on three dates in particular - 2017, 2021, and 2025. All key events in the fall of Monolith’s Wonder Woman, and all three points at what would’ve, could’ve, should’ve been for the game. Wonder Woman is a timeless character, but this era in gaming is tough for everyone, and the Warrior of Truth and Justice is no exception.
Why Wonder Woman Was A Poisoned Chalice For Monolith
Firstly, I’d like to make it clear that I vehemently disagree with any contention that Wonder Woman herself is simply too difficult to make a video game out of. We forget thatSpider-Manis canonically one of the strongest beings at Marvel. He’s not a Batman-type guy who can hold his own in a fight and has some gadgets. He punches through walls and lifts cars like they’re nothing. You cannot be ‘too strong’ for a video game. As for the character herself, she’s an icon who enjoyed two successful standalone movies off the charisma ofGal Gadot. She has swam against the tide and came out on top before.
So let’s look at 2017. That’s when Monolith’s final game shipped, in Middle-earth: Shadow of War.I love that series, despite not being big on LOTR, but it was worse than Shadow of Mordor and sold worse, too. Perhaps more importantly, it was vastly outsold byBatman: Arkham Knightdespite having higher pre-orders. With that, Monolith’s time in Middle-earth was over, and it moved on to a new project, but crucially, this was not Wonder Woman.
Instead, Monolith worked on an unknown game for four years, which was then scrapped. We will likely never know what this game was, or much else about it, but four years wasted put Wonder Woman up against it to begin with. Then, in 2021, the team pivots to Wonder Woman. We know fromWB Montreal pitching Flash and Constantine before getting Game of Thronesthat there was likely a bit of a scramble for marketable IP, and Wonder Woman was a great get. But with that came pressure.
As mentioned, one of the few updates on Wonder Woman was a statement that it was not a live-service game… but that only came afterjob postings sure seemed to suggest it was. Everything that has leaked from Wonder Woman reminded me ofSkull And Bones, a game with such a confused development cycle several years in the devs still weren’t sure if youplayed as a person or a boat. 2021 is a bad year to start making a video game likely to take half a decade - back then, it seemed (to those blinded by cash at least) like thelive-service bubble would go on forever, like the Covid-induced player spike would sustain itself, and like gaming was ready for a new era.
Wonder Woman Was In The Right Place At The Wrong Time
Now we come to 2025.That bubble has long since burst, and if Wonder Woman was heading in that direction, the failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League may have been a rude awakening. Even if it was a standard, Mordor-style open world adventure game, the likes ofBreath of the WildandElden Ringhavefundamentally shifted the genre.Star Wars Outlawswas a throwback style open world adventure propped up by a reliable IP, and weall saw how that went. After so long being retooled, whatever Wonder Woman looked like it was probably outdated by 2025. That meant either letting Monolith push on into a dead end or scrap it entirely, which would have been the second such scrapping since its last game to launch fizzled. Failure should not mean permanent closure, but that’s not a reality that makes for nice reading.
The most frustrating thing is we’ve seen successful superhero games in that time, most notably Spider-Man and his equivalent power level, who hasa three-entry strong seriesout in the world, with two more slated for the next few years (thougha third has been scrappedand this timeline may not hold). We’ve also hadGuardians of the Galaxydeliver the sort of game you’d have expected Wonder Woman to be and see cult success, if notworld domination the way Square Enix hoped for.
Wonder Woman joinsScalebound,Bully 2, andWhore of the Orientas games that will always be perfect in our heads but will never see the light of day. Wonder Woman and Monolith were in the right place at the wrong time, and the anger will soon give way to sadness that the modern gaming landscape has ended up like this.
