So with Geoff confirming that The Game Awards will have more than 10 brand new game announcements, it got me thinking about Warner Bros specifically and what their subsidiaries have been up to over the past few years. We already know that NetherRealm, Rocksteady, WB Montreal and Avalanche are hard at work on their next games so I wanted to use this thread to speculate on what we could potentially see at next weeks TGAs.
1. NetherRealm Studios: Mortal Kombat XI
Earlier this year, Ed Boon practically teased MKXI with this Twitter post.
Now NetherRealm have a reputation of putting out a new game every 2 years with Mortal Kombat 11, Injustice, Mortal Kombat X and Injustice 2 being no different. The safe assumption is to believe that MKXI comes out in 2019 to follow this trend.
The twitter post is a nice little tease and all but this doesn't suggest that the game is even ready to be shown off to the public, right? Well, it's only natural to assume that. However, with NetherRealm skipping E3, I'm going to assume that Warner Bros will use The Game Awards as a means to announce this new project. We've had Daniel Pesina (the OG Johnny Cage) confirm that MKXI is in development and that he's been working with them on the mocap side of things. Also Lalo Garza (voice actor for Kung Lao, Rain and Reptile) made this tweet a while back. It seems all but confirmed to show up at TGAs at this point with actors openly talking about it.
I personally think that NetherRealm's new game is definitely a cross-gen title which leads me to believe that we'll be seeing it soon.
Will they show up?: Extremely Likely
2. Rocksteady Studios: GaaS DC Game
Coming off of the successes of their final entry in the Arkham series, Rocksteady have been extremely quiet about what they've been working on the past 4 years. We got this tweet from the marketing game manager last year.
With no where to be seen at E3 2018, game director and co-founder of Rocksteady, Sefton Hill took to Twitter to make this post
Now I'd like to put this out there but Rocksteady (and any other game dev really) should absolutely take their time. I wouldn't want them to feel pressured to announce something prematurely.
The studio director over at Rocksteady posted this in the leadup to the San Diego Comic Con
Rocksteady have stated multiple times that their next title is a next-gen game. It is unknown whether they plan on it being cross-gen or not. Rocksteady and WB Montreal have been hiring recently for a AAA game but what strikes me as being different is that many of the job positions available are 2 and 2+ year contracts. This leads me to believe that Rocksteady are at a point in production where they can bulk up on staff and that this is possibly indicative of a potential launch window. Also I'm certain it's another DC title considering a few of the positions have an explicit requirement to have some sort of comic book knowledge.
This game does seem to be a huge deal considering they explicity state that they want it to acheive a 90+ Metacritic score (but then again what dev DOESN'T want this?)
I think it's important to place emphasis on the fact that during this hiring period, Rocksteady were looking for a community manager. The position has since been filled now but the description of the job strikes me as
Hiring for a community manager at this point in development? Sounds to me that they want to gear up for an announcement. Although it genuinely wouldn't surprise me if Rocksteady didn't know, TGAs seem like a perfect place to announce their new game, even more so than E3 due to higher viewership.
Now, what game would they announce? Well, there's been a bunch of speculation that it could be a Justice League game which is probably what I'm leaning towards IMO but don't hold me to that. Rocksteady have already hired a product manager who was responsible for Shadow of War's GaaS stuff. A Justice League backdrop would be the perfect kind of thing for this approach. Just putting this out there, but the person who was hired was responsible for earning WB $5 million in extra revenue for Injustice 2 and another $8 million for Shadow of War through consumables and Virtual Currency.
To further add to the GaaS argument, Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment recently partnered with Studio Gobo for projects "2018 and beyond". For those who don't know about Studio Gobo, they offer console game development services for character action games, focusing on post launch content. Their past titles include For Honor, Disney Infinity, and F1: 2012. While they don't outright state that they're working with Rocksteady, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.
Will they show up?: Possibly, but don't hold your breath.
3. Warner Bros. Montreal: 2 open world DC Universe games (Bat Family and Superman?)
After releasing Arkham Origins back in 2013, we haven't seen much of WB Montreal. Aside from working on the post-launch content for Arkham Knight, they've been relatively quiet. This is a studio around the size of 500 people mind you. Earlier this year, there were a few job listings posted suggesting that they're making a new game set in the DC Universe. What's interesting though is that a few weeks back, Osama Dorias (senior game designer at WB Montreal) revealed in an interview that he's finished working on said open-world DC Universe game and that he's been moved onto a new project. He mentioned that the project he worked on is a major DC IP and that it was one of the reasons he joined WB Montreal alongside WB Montreal's new game director, Geoff Ellenor. (thanks est1992 !) I'm almost certain it's a Bat game in some capacity, there's been a few rumors here and there that it's an open-world Bat Family game. I think it's also fair to mention that this new game from WB Montreal could potentially be multiplayer. A job listing for a lead gameplay programmer from last month revealed that they're looking for someone who has shipped a multiplayer console game before to work on a next-generation new IP.
Regarding the second project they're working on, we know that WB Montreal have worked on a canned Superman game before so if that's the second project we'll probably won't be seeing it for a long, long time. Osama has already stated that the game is in no state to be announced at all.
The LinkedIn profile from WB Montreal level designer Jerome Parent points to an 'unannounced UE4-based open world game'
Will they show up?: For project one, there's a possibility, although just like Rocksteady, I wouldn't hold my breath. No chance for project 2 however.
4. Avalanche Software: Next-gen open world Harry Potter console game
Avalanche became a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment back in 2017. We all know that a Harry Potter game leaked a while back, Eurogamer states that it's being developed by Avalanche which seems sound. I don't really see this popping up at The Game Awards considering the footage shown off seems to be in an early state. BBC News reporter Lizo Mzimba had this to say about potential final names of the project.
From what we know of this project, there were a few job postings in early 2017 looking for writers with a "deep understanding of British culture and grammatical presentation", and also with a good knowledge of "gaming narrative and branching storytelling, particularly in the realm of RPGs". According to job postings, the project has been described as a large-scale AAA console game project which leads me to believe that this is a next-gen game and we won't be seeing it for a while. I'm interested to hear more about it when the team is ready however.
Will they show up?: No chance
Well, what do y'all think? Out of these four, I'm most excited to see what NetherRealm and Rocksteady have been cooking up. As much as I'm skeptical about Rocksteady appearing at The Game Awards, I would absolutely love for them to reveal their next project to us.
1. NetherRealm Studios: Mortal Kombat XI
Earlier this year, Ed Boon practically teased MKXI with this Twitter post.
Now NetherRealm have a reputation of putting out a new game every 2 years with Mortal Kombat 11, Injustice, Mortal Kombat X and Injustice 2 being no different. The safe assumption is to believe that MKXI comes out in 2019 to follow this trend.
The twitter post is a nice little tease and all but this doesn't suggest that the game is even ready to be shown off to the public, right? Well, it's only natural to assume that. However, with NetherRealm skipping E3, I'm going to assume that Warner Bros will use The Game Awards as a means to announce this new project. We've had Daniel Pesina (the OG Johnny Cage) confirm that MKXI is in development and that he's been working with them on the mocap side of things. Also Lalo Garza (voice actor for Kung Lao, Rain and Reptile) made this tweet a while back. It seems all but confirmed to show up at TGAs at this point with actors openly talking about it.
I personally think that NetherRealm's new game is definitely a cross-gen title which leads me to believe that we'll be seeing it soon.
Will they show up?: Extremely Likely
2. Rocksteady Studios: GaaS DC Game
Coming off of the successes of their final entry in the Arkham series, Rocksteady have been extremely quiet about what they've been working on the past 4 years. We got this tweet from the marketing game manager last year.
With no where to be seen at E3 2018, game director and co-founder of Rocksteady, Sefton Hill took to Twitter to make this post
Now I'd like to put this out there but Rocksteady (and any other game dev really) should absolutely take their time. I wouldn't want them to feel pressured to announce something prematurely.
The studio director over at Rocksteady posted this in the leadup to the San Diego Comic Con
Rocksteady have stated multiple times that their next title is a next-gen game. It is unknown whether they plan on it being cross-gen or not. Rocksteady and WB Montreal have been hiring recently for a AAA game but what strikes me as being different is that many of the job positions available are 2 and 2+ year contracts. This leads me to believe that Rocksteady are at a point in production where they can bulk up on staff and that this is possibly indicative of a potential launch window. Also I'm certain it's another DC title considering a few of the positions have an explicit requirement to have some sort of comic book knowledge.
This game does seem to be a huge deal considering they explicity state that they want it to acheive a 90+ Metacritic score (but then again what dev DOESN'T want this?)
I think it's important to place emphasis on the fact that during this hiring period, Rocksteady were looking for a community manager. The position has since been filled now but the description of the job strikes me as
Hiring for a community manager at this point in development? Sounds to me that they want to gear up for an announcement. Although it genuinely wouldn't surprise me if Rocksteady didn't know, TGAs seem like a perfect place to announce their new game, even more so than E3 due to higher viewership.
Now, what game would they announce? Well, there's been a bunch of speculation that it could be a Justice League game which is probably what I'm leaning towards IMO but don't hold me to that. Rocksteady have already hired a product manager who was responsible for Shadow of War's GaaS stuff. A Justice League backdrop would be the perfect kind of thing for this approach. Just putting this out there, but the person who was hired was responsible for earning WB $5 million in extra revenue for Injustice 2 and another $8 million for Shadow of War through consumables and Virtual Currency.
To further add to the GaaS argument, Warner Bros Interactive Entertainment recently partnered with Studio Gobo for projects "2018 and beyond". For those who don't know about Studio Gobo, they offer console game development services for character action games, focusing on post launch content. Their past titles include For Honor, Disney Infinity, and F1: 2012. While they don't outright state that they're working with Rocksteady, it wouldn't surprise me if that was the case.
Will they show up?: Possibly, but don't hold your breath.
3. Warner Bros. Montreal: 2 open world DC Universe games (Bat Family and Superman?)
After releasing Arkham Origins back in 2013, we haven't seen much of WB Montreal. Aside from working on the post-launch content for Arkham Knight, they've been relatively quiet. This is a studio around the size of 500 people mind you. Earlier this year, there were a few job listings posted suggesting that they're making a new game set in the DC Universe. What's interesting though is that a few weeks back, Osama Dorias (senior game designer at WB Montreal) revealed in an interview that he's finished working on said open-world DC Universe game and that he's been moved onto a new project. He mentioned that the project he worked on is a major DC IP and that it was one of the reasons he joined WB Montreal alongside WB Montreal's new game director, Geoff Ellenor. (thanks est1992 !) I'm almost certain it's a Bat game in some capacity, there's been a few rumors here and there that it's an open-world Bat Family game. I think it's also fair to mention that this new game from WB Montreal could potentially be multiplayer. A job listing for a lead gameplay programmer from last month revealed that they're looking for someone who has shipped a multiplayer console game before to work on a next-generation new IP.
Regarding the second project they're working on, we know that WB Montreal have worked on a canned Superman game before so if that's the second project we'll probably won't be seeing it for a long, long time. Osama has already stated that the game is in no state to be announced at all.
The LinkedIn profile from WB Montreal level designer Jerome Parent points to an 'unannounced UE4-based open world game'
Will they show up?: For project one, there's a possibility, although just like Rocksteady, I wouldn't hold my breath. No chance for project 2 however.
4. Avalanche Software: Next-gen open world Harry Potter console game
Avalanche became a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment back in 2017. We all know that a Harry Potter game leaked a while back, Eurogamer states that it's being developed by Avalanche which seems sound. I don't really see this popping up at The Game Awards considering the footage shown off seems to be in an early state. BBC News reporter Lizo Mzimba had this to say about potential final names of the project.
From what we know of this project, there were a few job postings in early 2017 looking for writers with a "deep understanding of British culture and grammatical presentation", and also with a good knowledge of "gaming narrative and branching storytelling, particularly in the realm of RPGs". According to job postings, the project has been described as a large-scale AAA console game project which leads me to believe that this is a next-gen game and we won't be seeing it for a while. I'm interested to hear more about it when the team is ready however.
Will they show up?: No chance
Well, what do y'all think? Out of these four, I'm most excited to see what NetherRealm and Rocksteady have been cooking up. As much as I'm skeptical about Rocksteady appearing at The Game Awards, I would absolutely love for them to reveal their next project to us.
