The Wonder Woman game currently under development at Middle-Earth studio Monolith Productions will seemingly have live-service elements, if a new job listing for the team is accurate, making high-quality offline games based on DC’s heroes even harder to find.
An official WB Games job post (via WCCFTech) for the upcoming Wonder Woman game includes a call for applicants to have “Experience helping maintain a live software product or game.” This certainly points towards the live-service business model, though it does not outright confirm the superhero game will indeed follow it. Nevertheless, the news is not shocking in the least, as Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav recently revealed the company would focus on live-service games in the future:
“Our focus is on transforming our biggest franchises from largely console and PC based with three-four year release schedules to include more always on gameplay through live services, multiplatform, and free-to-play extensions with the goal to have more players spending more time on more platforms,” Zaslav stated during an earnings call.
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For the uninitiated, live services typically prioritize microtransactions and long-term content rollout, instead of giving players a complete experience from the start. WB’s other upcoming superhero game, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, raised eyebrows when it was revealed to be a cooperative live-service experience. The negative feedback led to the game being delayed a year, a move we questioned when it was announced. That game’s developer, Rocksteady, mastered the narrative-driven single-player game with the Arkham trilogy, so the news that Suicide Squad was going to be a live service left fans with a bad taste.
If Wonder Woman is indeed a live-service game, an ugly pattern may be forming. Monolith has created multiplayer games before, but the team’s most praised work remains the Middle-Earth titles. If WB Games is insistent that most future projects from their developers must be ongoing, we could see the decline of one-and-done IP-based games.
The game as a service model is not a particularly positive term for gamers, and for good reason. Games like Marvel’s Avengers from Square Enix crashed and burned because of its over-reliance on being a live service (among other things). Not all are bad, however, so final judgment should be reserved until the game actually comes out. You never know, Wonder Woman (or Suicide Squad) could break the superhero live service curse.
