In a cost-cutting move, Warner Bros. Games announced the closure of the Monolith Productions studio that developed the video games Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Middle-earth: Shadow or War, The Operative: No One Lives Forever and F.E.A.R. With the sudden closure of the studio, the Wonder Woman game that Monolith announced in 2021 has also been canceled.
In addition to Monolith, two other studios, Player First Games and Warner Bros. Games San Diego, will also be closing. 2024 was a bad year for Warner Bros. Games with the failure of the video games Suicide Squad and Multiversus. Player First Games is the studio that developed Multiversus. With the closure of these three studios, Warner Bros. Games hopes that the video game business will be able to return to profitability.
The closure of Monolith is perhaps the most disappointing because their Middle-earth series changed the landscape of open-world games with the Nemesis System. This system is patented by Warner Bros. Games so that other games cannot use it without paying a license. With Monolith closed, hopes for another new game with the Nemesis System are fading.