New IP, reboot, cancellation… A look back at the chaotic development of Wonder Woman

Freshly canceled by Warner Bros. Games, the Wonder Woman game went through quite the development hell. It was a difficult context that sadly ended with project being halted and the closure of the studio responsible, Monolith Productions.

On the set of Kinda Funny Games, journalist Jason Schreier has retraced the story of the game. It all began in 2017, just after the release of Middle-earth: Shadow of War. At the time, Monolith didn’t want to make a third entry, and began thinking about a completely new IP codenamed “Legacy”.

It was to be a kind of procedural narrative game, reusing the famous Nemesis system. Schreier declared the title to be promising, beautiful and full of great ideas. The design phase lasted three years. It was after all this time that Warner Bros. Games finally told the developers that the game would not see the light of day. The publisher preferred to use its existing franchises to take as few risks as possible.

This decision led to the departure of seven Monolith directors. Five or six of them left to found Cliffhanger Games, which is currently at work on Black Panther for Electronic Arts. Other devs followed suit, and the studio soon found itself short-staffed.

Around March-April 2021, Monolith decided to turn its attention to a Wonder Woman game, to be announced six months later at the Game Awards. At the time, the company was in the midst of rebuilding, and was experiencing technical problems. The team didn’t know whether to use its in-house engine or go with Unreal Engine. The first option was the one.

But around late 2023-early 2024, Wonder Woman was rebooted. Initially, the title used the Nemesis system to allow the heroine to forge alliances with certain characters. At the end of the reboot, it took the direction of a more classic action-adventure game akin to God of War. Sadly, it was already too late.

Let’s not forget that 2024 was a really bad year for Warner Bros. Games. The publisher suffered numerous setbacks with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, MultiVersus and Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. The group’s strategy was changed to focus solely on successful licenses such as Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones and Batman.

All this led to Wonder Woman being cancelled this week.