Monolith Productions' Wonder Woman appears to be invisibly jetting itself towards an announcement at The Game Awards
Can you hear the ominous Amazonian chorus drawing closer?
Were you to cast the Lasso of Truth around Warner Bros. Games, before interrogating them on the state of their DC adaptations, their concessions would be rather grim. Since 2015’s swansong to Rocksteady’s Batman trilogy in Arkham Knight, the studio has produced the following superpowered serials:
Batman: Arkham VR;
Injustice 2;
Gotham Knights; and
Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League.
The former, NetherRealm Studios’ iteration upon their godly, graphic spin upon the DC canon, emerged as the “highest-grossing console game in the second quarter of 2017”. Time Warner, DC’s parent company from two corporate marriages ago, perhaps adorned its success with an excess of qualifiers - nevertheless, it was a fair feat for a fighter. From its debut onward, however, the studio have struggled to assert the brand’s vigour in the marketplace; Marvel’s misadventure in their Avengers adaptation drew attention from DC’s own mismanagement.
Injustice 2 built upon NetherRealm’s proficiency in fluid, intricate combat, albeit through immortal means.
Granted, the Warner Bros. corporation writ large has found itself mired within a procession of inept successors, from a telephone company that had little understanding of how to follow essential Hollywood etiquette to, well, the Grim Reaper incarnate. Furthermore, from a creative perspective, their slate of major motion pictures were rendered minor in impact. Whereas their contemporaries, save for Paramount’s projects that were not under Cruise control, managed to sustain a variable stream of revenue from a broad suite of genres, the Bros. have failed to assert a commercial identity. Once known for shepherding sobering crime dramas throughout the New Hollywood, punctuated by a striking Saul Bass ident, their contemporary reputation is not bleeding cool, rather bleeding credibility.
Excuse the detour into the wilds of the film industry; my film degree is revealing itself as though it were the Marauder’s Map - from a WB IP! Since bidding farewell to Harry Potter and Christopher Nolan’s Batman in successive years - later divorcing from the director outright before his most improbable hit - their attempts to seize a smidgen of their enthusiasm have run into a reserve of rakes, slipped on a series of banana peels, and, in a grand conclusion, tumbled down the stairs that raised their profile once again. Since assuming control of the lot, the Discovery corporation have alienated filmmakers, shelved completed projects, and broke the streaming paradigm through sending theatrical films to their flailing Max service - sorry, that was the telephone company. The noble folks at the Discovery Channel are committed to the majesty of the theatrical experience … through giving one of its most celebrated directors a muted farewell to filmmaking. Truly, connecting their intrinsic ineptitude to their gaming division’s tantamount troubles produces a short thread.
You may have heard Joker: Folie à Deux vastly underperformed expectations, was universally reviled, and had a touch of singing throughout.
Gotham Knights was first unveiled in 2020, asserting itself as an independent proposition at once - who the refined texture of the Arkham series, its villains, or its rhythmic combat? Certainly not Rocksteady, who revealed their third-person shooter spin on the Suicide Squad the same day as their contemporaries at WB Games Montréal; DC’s interactive design integrity dissolved overnight. Arkham Asylum had challenged the stigma associated with licenced titles a decade ago; these respective development teams reverted to the crass commercial origins of the form in an instant.
The former would arrive in 2022, abandoning last-generation platforms in a valiant attempt to settle upon a laboured 30fps on their current kin; I heard at some point the latter debuted earlier this year? Ultimately, Gotham Knights’ rote polyptych failed to approximate the atmosphere of its predecessor, delivering dissatisfactory combat, halted traversal, and perfunctory stealth. Suicide Squad, however, outperformed expectations: it was even more torturous and uninspired than its audience expected it to be. Injustice 2 depicted duels with due weight; a conclusive fight against Superman could be resolved through twirling around and firing a hail of bullets.
The shadow of Batman hung over the team to an extreme end - at least Red Hood had guns to blast his trauma apart.
The lone, rogue party yet to arrive is Monolith Productions’ take on Wonder Woman: erstwhile saviour of DC’s flailing cinematic ventures, before falling to an unfortunate union of pandemic pandemonium and conceptual missteps. Announced in 2021, little is known of the game’s ambition - save for an assumption that it will feature Monolith’s patented (literally patented) Nemesis sytem honed through their Middle-earth duology. Indeed, the heroine’s sword-and-shield manner, along with her Lasso of Truth and mystical milieu, draw immediate parallels to the vengeful plight of Talion; the latter allowed players to strike odious orcs before interrogating them for further information on their sinister campaign. Considering that the Lord of the Rings’ interactive rights are under the watchful Eye of Sauron … sorry, the benevolent gaze of the Embracer Group - themselves far from steady - iterating upon their identity through a familiar hero represents an effective compromise against their migration from Middle-earth.
Fortunately, Wonder Woman is not a live-service title, conceded in late 2023 - perhaps in anticipation of Suicide Squad’s disasturous performance. This is the last update the public have received upon the title, prior to a revitalisation of Monolith’s website to prominently portray the game on its front page. Aside from a brief remark made by Kinda Funny co-founder Greg Miller suggesting the game’s production was rather “troubled”, this sly sign of life suggests the team are preparing to take The Game Awards’ audience to Themyscria as they did in 2021; a release next year would coincide neatly with James Gunn’s Superman selectively resetting the DC multimedia canon.
Against nigh-quotidian reports of WB considering a sale of its video game stable, Monolith’s assertion of Wonder Woman’s presence within their portfolio represents a faith in their design principles - if not, after seven long years between their last title, a return on their patent for the Nemesis system. The Shadow saga represented the perfect fusion of concept and delivery, crafting bespoke, grizzly yarns defiantly adjunct to Tolkien’s Silmarillion; fostering a narrative against a foe, charting their rise to prominence in the wake of your demise, was a generational revelation sentenced to mimicry. However, irrespective of Wonder Woman’s performance, WB will indeed resort to licensing their properties to third-party developers, lessening expenditures on their behalf.
I spent a fair sum of hours slashing my way through Shadow of War’s map, amassing a critical sum of arch-nemeses.
Regardless, players should expect their journey to be complimented by a Greek chorus in the vein of the heroine’s signature theme, as exercises rather thoroughly through her slate of connective cameos in the latter days of the DC Cinematic Universe. While you can, grab hold of Pedro Pascal’s wishing stone and think on all you desire for its gameplay.