| (Image property of Monolith Entertainment and Warner Bros. Games) Announced at the 2021 Game Awards with a flashy pre-rendered trailer, new information has been pretty thin on the ground ever since, fuelling rumours and hearsay spreading about a troubled development and internal delays. However, I'm not interested in rumours today. Rather, I want to talk about a far more dangerous scenario; what if the game does come out? A game that never came to be, like PT, is remembered as a beautiful bud, never allowed to flower. Games that come out though, they have to live up to expectations and, oh boy, does Wonder Woman have some high expectations... Background For those of you not following Wonder Woman's development, let me get you up to speed. Don't worry, it won't take long. Monolith, developers of the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War games are once again working with Warner Bros., this time under the umbrella of DC Comics rather than The Lord of the Rings. Their pitch is a single-player, implicitly open world, game focused on DC's iconic heroine that, judging by the voice-over from the trailer, will follow Diana's return to defend her island home of Themyscira.  | | (Image property of Monolith Entertainment and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) The big headline is that the game will use Monolith's famous Nemesis System from the Shadow games to create an organic hierarchy of enemies that constantly reshuffles in response to players' actions. For example, you might kill a general who is then replaced by a weaker foe whose randomly-generated weaknesses can be exploited. Applying this organic gameplay system to a colourful world like DC comics and all that it entails is a naturally appealing combination. However, that's pretty much it. Most, if not all, of this information was released with the teaser trailer back in 2021 and very little concrete information has been heard from the game since. This isn't an issue in and of itself but, for Monolith and WB specifically, it might be. As more time passes, the expectations and pressures on the game are growing and it might be that, when Wonder Woman releases, it could be into a much more hostile gaming landscape than the one it was announced for.  | | (Image property of Monolith Entertainment and Warner Bros. Games) Warner Bros. The first major obstacle that Wonder Woman faces, unfortunately, is its own publisher. It may be traditional wisdom to keep one's enemies close but having your life in their hands still isn't a great idea. As is the case with Monolith and Warner Bros.. While, as a publisher, WB has overseen the production of bona fide modern classics like the Batman: Arkham series, the publisher has pushed an increasingly concerning strategy of late.
 | | (Image property of Rocksteady Studios and Warner Bros. Games) |
Earlier this year, they released Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League to a resounding cacophony of boos and jeers from the gaming public. Even the most optimistic players could only muster up the energy to say that some of the movement and gun-play was fun through gritted teeth. Despite this, the company promised that it would continue pursuing live service games as a priority for its business strategy, showing that, even though Suicide Squad undoubtedly bombed, WB still sees potential in this business model. Now, whether they're playing venture-capitalist 4D chess or if the Animaniacs have taken over behind the scenes, I'm not sure. What I do know, however, is that this dogmatic commitment to the live service model means that any single-player games at WB will be under increased scrutiny with higher expectations placed upon them to justify their own existence. That's obviously not a problem when you're Hogwarts Legacy and you can become the highest-selling game of the year because Harry Potter effectively raised an entire generation who now have disposable incomes. It is much more of a problem, however, when you're Monolith's Wonder Woman.  | | (Image property of Avalanche Software and Warner Bros. Games) I like Wonder Woman as much as the next twenty-something comics fan with a barren social calendar, but it's not Harry Potter. Wonder Woman doesn't hold the same nostalgia credit for millions of paying adults in the way that Harry Potter does. The 2017 film did well because it was at the height of the comic book movie craze and it had strong word-of-mouth. The second came out to streaming during the pandemic and effectively killed what enthusiasm remained from the first.  | | (Image property of Warner Bros. Pictures and DC Films) This is, in essence, where Monolith's game finds itself. It could do very well with the backing of strong word-of-mouth. But, with Warner Bros. pushing the live service model, even that might not be enough to win over a publisher hell-bent on creating consistent income through micro-transactions and content updates. In the last year alone, we've seen that corporate owners are more than comfortable with scrapping entire studios, like Tango Gameworks, at the drop of a hat to save on the bottom line. It might be the case that, even if Wonder Woman does perform well, as an outlier to WB's live-service-first business model, Monolith could still find themselves aboard a sinking ship. The passage of time and patents The second major potential barrier facing Monolith's Wonder Woman is audience expectations. To put things in perspective, Middle Earth: Shadow of War, Monolith's last game, came out seven years ago. It took a total of four whole years for Wonder Woman to be revealed and, because of that, many hoped at the time for a quick run-up to release. As it stands, Wonder Woman is unlikely to release before late 2025 at the absolute earliest. That adds up to a total eight year wait since Monolith's last game and four from its first reveal as an absolute minimum.  | | (Image property of Monolith Entertainment and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) Now, I fully appreciate that four years from reveal to release isn't an outrageous amount of time for a modern Triple-A game. If waiting for Monolith's Wonder Woman is like waiting for a bus at 4am in the rain, waiting for something like Duke Nukem: Forever would be like waiting for a bus to the moon. However, this is kind of the issue. The Triple-A industry takes so long to produce new titles that people have become increasingly frustrated and unforgiving when they fail to meet expectations. WB's own Suicide Squad is a prime example of this. A veteran developer took years to release their new superhero game with multiple delays and internal shake-ups and then, when it came out, people tore it to shreds because being a basically passable, if bland, product was simply not enough to justify the wait.  | | (Image property of Rocksteady Studios and Warner Bros. Games) This is part of the concern that I have for Monolith. The pitch for Wonder Woman still sounds an awful lot like the Middle Earth games. Defending an isolated location with large amounts of green space against a hostile invading army utilising historical-fantasy weaponry with the Nemesis System as the main appeal sounds pretty familiar. This isn't to say that I think the games will be identical, obviously they won't be. Rather, I worry that Monolith may not be able to pack enough innovation into one game to justify the colossal wait times that are, unfortunately, an industry standard at this point. The final problem that compounds this whole situation is Monolith's pride and joy, the Nemesis System itself. Quite famously, WB holds a patent on the Nemesis System that prevents it from being used by any other studios until as late as 2035. When this information was released this, understandably, annoyed a lot of the gaming community for being needlessly anti-competitive and stifling innovation.  | | (Image property of Monolith Entertainment and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment) While it must have made good business sense to WB at the time, this patent is a double-edged sword. In the same way that Wonder Woman has to live up to the expectation set by Monolith taking four years to make it, it now also has to justify WB's decades-long stranglehold on the Nemesis System. There are two problems here. Firstly, because no other company can create something like the Nemesis System, it's impossible for any popular trends to form around it, meaning that Wonder Woman can't step out expecting a warm reception as general audiences will be none-the-wiser to it. Secondly, just like with the rest of Monolith's gameplay design, the Nemesis System will need to show off some major improvements and innovations to justify why WB should hold an effective monopoly over it. This is a potential word-of-mouth disaster. If the gaming public feel as though Monolith have wasted the last four years of development or have failed to make use of WB's Nemesis patent, they could very easily turn on Wonder Woman. These are mistakes that Monolith cannot really afford to make, as I've already highlighted. In the high stakes poker game that is the gaming industry in 2024, Monolith need to be seen to be putting on a good show, both critically and financially, or else they might become the latest in a long line of victims of "cost-cutting" measures.  | | (Image property of Rocksteady Studios and Warner Bros. Games) Conclusion I know that my tone here has been somewhat negative, but I mean it out of concern more than anything else. I consider myself a fan of Monolith's work and I'd like to see Wonder Woman's potential fulfilled in video game form. The problems that I've raised here are the concerns that I have for the game. As more time passes and the Triple-A industry becomes an increasingly hostile working environment, I worry that some of my favourites might cop a stray bullet and, as I've hopefully demonstrated, it seems like there are plenty of strays flying Monolith's way. My greatest hope for this piece is that, in two years time, people will be able to come back and laugh at me like a clumsy panda in the zoo because I spoke too soon and the game was a huge success. If that happens, I assure you, I'll be standing right there laughing with you. I'd much rather that than having to don my black suit for Monolith's wake.  | | (Image property of Monolith Entertainment and Warner Bros. Games) All images and intellectual properties above belong to their respective rights-holders and are utilised here for the purpose of criticism and review.
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