Well that’s the thing… it wasn’t competition that killed them. It was failure to produce a single Wonder Woman game after years of development and millions of dollars.
That screams piss poor management to me. We’ll probably hear later how there was a complete lack of direction.
That's what I'm talking about. The game-changing direction doesn't mean there was a failure of management.
There are lots of reasons for a game to change direction, many of them valid without being the fault of management.
You have a lot of moving pieces to lump everything together as management is a bit lazy.
First, you have the upheaval within DC/WB in the first place. I bet you anything the project moved from Unreal 4 to Unreal 5, which is always a risk, but probably a necessary one given the time period in which this game started development.
Maybe the original game was supposed to tie in more with Gal Gadot reprising the role. Gal Gadot's contract to be Wonder Woman expired in December of 2022 and Gunn decided not to renew it.
In Suicide Squad Kill The Justice League they cast Zehra Fazal as Wonder Woman, despite a long time voice actress being attached to the role (Susan Eisenberg). Eisenberg hasn't portrayed Wonder Woman since 2019. Stana Katic has been cast as Wonder Woman in DC animated films 2021. Doubtful that Katic would have been involved with this game since the beginning, but the game was teased in 2021, so you have to ask yourself why Zehra Fazal was used in Justice League rather than Stana Katic. Probably because Justice League was in development before she became the voice actor for WW and after they had moved on from Eisenberg.
Eisenberg who was not connected to the game posted this on her Instagram:
You also have the voice actor strike that would impact this game. It's also possibly a reason why we haven't seen anything for Wolverine. Again, completely out of the control of "management" at an individual game studio.
You also have a similar problem that Insomniac has with Wolverine in that you're looking at someone who is purely melee. That doesn't work well in open world and gets stale the longer you play it. It's a tough sell to begin with, but it makes sense why WB would want to try and make the game. Opens things up for a justice league game. This game was probably canceled for a few reasons
- In development too long, probably went from UE4 to UE5
- Probably turbulence around voice actors
- David Haddad being out meant a whole new re-examination of the interactive slate and cost savings
- Marvel Rivals being so successful immediately giving WB $$$ envy and wanting to focus on things like that
bsky.app
Dunno what San Diego was working on.
