Batman Arkham devs pitched a Constantine game, then a Flash game, now a Game of Thrones project

Two games have been cancelled at WB Montreal since the disappointing release of Gotham Knights, sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier.

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Photo credit: Superman8193, Alex Ross

After booking $384 million in impairment charges from two costly failures, WB Games has been restructured. Executive leadership has departed, studios like Middle-earth Shadow of Mordor developer Monolith Productions have been closed down, and top brass has ordered a strict greenlight process that focuses on just a handful of IPs and franchises.

With all the talk about studio closures, gamers want to know: What's happening with WB Montreal? The studio did make Batman: Arkham Origins, which has received high praise. According to Bloomberg's Jason Schreier, WB Montreal has mostly become a support studio rather than a group leading its own projects, but the team has apparently pitched a Game of Thrones project.

In a recent episode of the Kinda Funny podcast, Schreier outlined a tense and dismissive relationship between Warner Bros. studios HQ in Burbank and WB Games Montreal. Reports indicate that WB Montreal had a tough time getting an affirmative greenlight on its projects following the disappointing results of Gotham Knights (which had actually started out as a live game).

The studio wanted to make a kind of Gotham Knights 1.5 spin-off game, but that got cancelled after the original game didn't meet expectations. During this time, Burbank studios was reportedly "dragging the studio along" when it came to game pitches. WB Montreal even pitched a Constantine game but plans for that were scrapped.

Management apparently gave WB Montreal a choice between making a game on two DC characters: Either a game based on the Joker, or a game based on the Flash. The Montreal studio chose the latter, and started working on the game, but ultimately the project fizzled out.

Schreier even says that WB Montreal could be working on a new Game of Thrones project...but had also previously said more than a few times that WB Games Montreal had been turned into a support studio.

"So after Gotham Knights 1. 5 was canceled, they wound up pitching a Constantine game, before realizing after months of pitching that Burbank was never going to say yes to that and just kept dragging them along.

"They wound up...I think Burbank, when I say Burbank, that essentially means WB Games corporate, I think they said, 'Hey, why don't you do something about The Flash or Joker?' and they picked The Flash and wound up working on that, but then that didn't happen.

"There was a lot of...I think there was a belief from WB in Burbank that WB Games Montreal [...] couldn't be trusted to make new games after Gotham Knights was such a failure, and that they should become a support studio.

"And while some of these pitches were going on, a lot of the people from Montreal got put on Wonder Woman, and even some other games throughout the org, and so they essentially were turned into a support studio for WB.

"But Burbank didn't want to say that to the company, so instead they kept dangling like this idea that they could pitch something new. I believe the current state of things is that they're pitching a new Game of Thrones game, so we'll see if that happens."