Among those affected by these lay-offs are Gotham Knights level designer Camille Olivier Paquette, lead scriptwriter on Gotham Knights and associate narrative director on Wonder Woman Ceri Young, and associate producer Nicolas Pereira-Poisson.

“Today was my last day at Warner Brother Games Montreal and I am now looking for an opportunity to continue my career as Level Designer in the industry,” wrote Paquette in a LinkedIn post over the weekend. On around the same day, Young also announced her departure through a post. “Hey all! As of today I’m looking for a new role in the games industry,” she wrote.

While Pereira-Poisson hasn’t outright made any posts announcing his departure from the company, a quick look at his LinkedIn profile reveals that his tenure at WB Games Montreal as a full-time associate producer came to an end this month. Before this, he had worked on the ill-fated Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, as well as three unannounced games.

While neither Warner Bros. Discovery, nor Paramount Skydance have made any statement regarding these lay-offs, Motive Studio’s experience design director Eric Bellefeuille too to LinkedIn to write his own.

“Layoffs are never easy, and my thoughts go out to the incredibly talented developers affected by the recent changes at Warner Bros. Games Montréal and Electronic Arts,” he wrote. “To anyone impacted, if you need support, introductions, or simply someone to help you expand your network, please don’t hesitate to reach out. Our industry is built on collaboration and community, and I’d be more than happy to help however I can.”

“You’re not alone in this moment. There are many of us who value the skills, creativity, and passion you bring to game development. Let’s stay connected.”

Netflix was originally going to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery in a deal valued at around $82.7 billion as of December 2025. However, Paramount Skydance offered its own deal, valued at $111 billion. This led to Netflix walking away from its initial deal and referring to Paramount’s offer as being a “superior proposal”. Netflix co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters went on to note that countering Paramount’s offer made the deal no longer “financially attractive.”

“The transaction we negotiated would have created shareholder value with a clear path to regulatory approval,” said the CEOs in a statement. “However, we’ve always been disciplined, and at the price required to match Paramount Skydance’s latest offer, the deal is no longer financially attractive, so we are declining to match the Paramount Skydance bid.”

In another statement, Sarandos would go on to note that Netflix pulled back from the deal because “We definitely wanted this asset. We didn’t need it.” He went on to refer to Warner Bros. Discovery as a company that would have been nice for Netflix to have bought. Despite this, however, things are looking up for Netflix, with the $2.8 billion it got from Paramount Skydance as part of the deal’s breakup fee is being reinvested into the streaming giant.

Interestingly, Drapeau is noted as being one of the first people to work at Haven Studios, and his LinkedIn profile indicates that his departure from the studio took place some time in August. “As of this week, I joined WB Games Montreal Inc. as Creative Director,” wrote Drapeau a few weeks ago on LinkedIn. “I can’t wait to start this wonderful adventure with all the great people here at the studio.”

Drapeau is a veteran of the gaming industry, having first started out as a game tester all the way back in 2006. Since then, he has slowly worked his way up the ranks, especially in the field of game design. Among the projects that Drapeau has worked on include Rainbow Six Siege and Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Throughout his career, Drapeau primarily worked at Ubisoft before leaving the company to join Haven Studios back in 2021.

Drapeau isn’t the first major departure from Haven Studios’ Fairgame$ project. Studio head and founder Jade Raymond had left the company back in May. A PlayStation spokesperson confirmed this with a statement, thanking Raymond for her contributions to the studio’s work. Her position has since been taken up by Marie-Eve Danis and Pierre-François Sapinski as co-studio heads.

“Jade Raymond has been an incredible partner and visionary force in founding Haven Studios,” said the spokesperson about Raymond’s departure. “We are deeply grateful for her leadership and contributions, and we wish her all the best in her next chapter.”

Haven Studios had announced Fairgame$ all the way back in May 2023. Since then, however, no details about the game have been confirmed by either the studio or PlayStation. Fairgame$ is slated to be a heist title with PvEvP gameplay, and is currently being developed for PC and PS5.

Fairgame$ was announced with a trailer, which showcased a crew of three players making use of tools like grappling hooks to breach a seemingly secure facility. Along the way, the group encounters another group that is seemingly trying to steal the same thing from the same location.

A job listing for Fairgame$ indicated that it would be a major AAA release for Haven Studios and PlayStation. The listing noted that the title has been on track with its development, and is slated “to deliver a AAA multiplayer experience.”

While no official details have been confirmed as of yet, rumours from back in May indicate that, along with its core extraction shooter gameplay, Fairgame$ will also feature elements from other live service titles like Fortnite and Tom Clancy’s The Division. However, playtests have indicated that development on the title wasn’t going as well as Haven Studios had hoped, with feedback revolving around how it “doesn’t feel good to play” and feels “super clunky”.

The job listing is for an executive producer that, according to the description, will be responsible for leading “the development of a high-quality AAA game based on one of the iconic IPs from the vast Warner Bros. and DC Comics catalog.”

The listing goes on to mention that responsibilities associated with the role will include overseeing various parts of the game’s development, as well as the development and progress of its “post-launch live operations”. The job listing is for WB Games Montreal, and will also involve the employee having to manage production budgets for the game as well as ensure that the QA processes, as well as live operations are robust.

The idea that Warner Bros. might be dipping into the live service well once again comes as quite a surprise, especially since, back in May, the company attributed major revenue shortfalls to the failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. In its financial report at the time, the company noted that its revenue was buoyed by the success of Mortal Kombat 1 and Hogwarts Legacy despite the lack of commercial performance of Suicide Squad.

Generally speaking, the company reported a revenue of $2.3 billion from its gaming studios – a year-on-year decrease of 16 percent. Overall revenues for the company, however, saw a 9 percent year-on-year increase, coming in at $9 billion.

The financial report came after the company had announced the closure of three of its studios: Monolith Productions, Player First Games, and WB Games San Diego. Monolith’s closure also led to the cancellation of the in-development Wonder Woman game at the studio.

“This is another tough decision, as we recognize Monolith’s storied history of delivering epic fan experiences through amazing games,” said the studio when it announced the studio closures. “We greatly admire the passion of the three teams and thank every employee for their contributions. As difficult as today is, we remain focused on and excited about getting back to producing high-quality games for our passionate fans, developed by our world-class studios, and getting our games business back to profitability and growth in 2025 and beyond.”

While Warner Bros. itself hasn’t confirmed whether or not this was the case, rumours have indicated that the decision to cancel Wonder Woman came about because of the commercial failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League. The report also indicated that, before it was cancelled, Wonder Woman would have made use of the Nemesis system that Monolith had designed for Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, and its sequel, Middle-earth: Shadow of War.

The failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, as well as that of MultiVersus, had reportedly put WB Games in a bit of a hole.

And then Batman: Arkham Knight came along.

Launching on June 23rd, 2015, after extensive hype, it would seemingly offer a thunderous conclusion to the trilogy (and yes, trilogy because, for better or worse, Arkham Origins never gets its due). Previous titles exposed Batman’s never-say-die attitude and incredible detective skills, but this one stacked the gauntlet in a way that exposed his desperation. Maybe the Dark Knight wouldn’t come out of this in one piece. Maybe this really was the Knight’s End.

It seemed like the perfect recipe for a finale, especially with the Arkham Knight providing a suitable counter to Batman’s prowess. Gotham City presented a slick new open-world playground to explore, one teeming with new Riddler challenges, villains to nab, and unsuspecting crooks to divebomb on mid-dialogue. There was also the Batmobile, and who wouldn’t love tearing through the streets, targeting enemy vehicles and wrecking them (non-lethally) before engaging in some friendly interrogation? Did we mention how incredible everything looked? Even by today’s standards (and by those of more recent DC games, which we’ll get to), it looks absolutely phenomenal in pretty much every aspect.

In its endeavor to go a little too large with the sequel, Rocksteady introduced some rather annoying wrinkles. Which we’ll get into but ten years on, Batman: Arkham Knight is still an incredible open-world experience and one of the better superhero games out there, even if it kind of fumbled the climax. No major story spoilers, so don’t worry if you’ve never played it.

The events of Arkham City would make Gotham City much safer, but it’s not long before Scarecrow, missing since Arkham Asylum, would unleash a new spread of Fear Toxin. Batman quickly enters the fray, venturing to where it all began – Ace Chemicals. And then his world is turned upside down. Confronted by a new villain, the Arkham Knight, leading a group of mercenaries and working with Scarecrow, Batman has to deal with the kidnapping of Barbara Gordon, aka Oracle and a larger plan to infect the city. Then there’s the matter of the Joker, whose infected blood is turning a small group of patients into his successors.

There are some pretty high stakes, and Rocksteady offers up some pretty cool set pieces, but the overall narrative sags in places, especially when it comes to the Arkham Knight. Given the circumstances of his history with Batman, you would think that a proper battle would be in the offing, but it’s an anticlimactic series of takedowns while sneaking past his shots.

Then there’s the other elephant in the room – the Batmobile. Yes, it was cool when engaging in high-speed chases and even in some puzzles, but there were also the annoying tank missions, where you had to take down waves and waves of enemy vehicles. It was repetitive, and even if you still had missions where Batman stealthily took down a base’s opposition, destroying 20 militia checkpoints was simply too much to ask.

With those negatives out of the way, let’s talk about the many positives. The Free Flow Combat is still as robust as ever – countering and dodging is still fluid and responsive; finishers are hard-hitting and crunchy. Building up your combo and systematically dismantling a group of enemies never gets old, even if the variety of threats isn’t massively expanded over the previous games. One of the cooler new additions is Dual Play – it allowed for temporarily controlling the likes of Robin, Catwoman and Nightwing. You could even perform stylish dual takedowns. The only downside is that it’s only available in select points, and they’re not nearly as plentiful throughout the story. Stealth also remained as excellent as ever, with new options like imitating Harley Quinn’s voice with the Voice Synthesizer to lure enemies and pounce on them.

Regardless, it’s such a refined and well-done combat system that WB Games Montreal’s Gotham Knights looks downright sickening in comparison. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League incorporated a counter-shot mechanic but still leaned heavily on looter mechanics, “traversal skills” and unimaginative live-service objectives.

While there’s plenty to dislike about certain open-world activities in Arkham Knight, the Most Wanted system did open up a fresh variety of cases and villains for Batman to hunt down. The Perfect Crime is investigation-heavy and leads to a battle with one of the Dark Knight’s more disturbing villains. There are Riddler challenges to complete and Trophies to earn, and though it was an excuse to shoehorn more Batmobile segments, at least these were more focused on racing than combat. Other notable villains – and antiheroes – from the franchise also make their debut, presenting some interesting new stories and challenges.

The traversal also remained as incredible as ever – chaining grapples and glides just felt so intuitive and right, making the Batmobile stick out like a sore thumb all the more. Perhaps the biggest point of contention for most players is having to achieve 100 percent for the true ending, which only raises more questions than answers. Then again, with how Kill the Justice League followed up, I would have preferred if they went unanswered.

As good as the base game could be, the DLC didn’t quite hit the mark. Playing as Batgirl in a story set before Arkham Asylum? Good, save for the crashing issues. Controlling Harley Quinn as she battles against Blüdhaven’s cops? Decent if it didn’t last 30 minutes (and the Red Hood Story Pack is even shorter). Catwoman’s Revenge? A Flip of a Coin, which saw Robin taking on Two-Face? Bad, plain and simple. At least the Season of Infamy added multiple new missions and villains like Mr. Freeze, The Mad Hatter, and Killer Croc, each with their own stories.

Batman: Arkham Knight was no stranger to controversy at launch. While the Xbox One and PS4 versions ran flawlessly, delivering a consistent 30 frames per second even with such detailed weather effects, character models, and environments, the PC version was an unmitigated disaster. Performance issues, crashes, bugs, a capped frame rate (which still dropped extensively) – the whole works. It was so bad that Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment suspended sales a day after launch and even offered refunds. Months would pass, and even with significant patches, the PC version still had issues, but it would eventually get much better.

Even with all these caveats – the Batmobile, some of the story beats, the finale, etc – Batman: Arkham Knight is still an essential experience. There’s something about Rocksteady exploring all these different avenues for the iconic hero, attempting to expand on his mythos and journey while following up on its successor, one of the greatest games ever made. It may not nail everything perfectly – I would probably rate it an eight out of ten, all things considered – but it’s still incredibly fun. Together with Arkham Asylum and Arkham Knight, this is one of the greatest video game trilogies out there.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

While art leaked last year courtesy of concept artist Goran Bukvic, who said it was for a “cancelled game,” a fresh batch has been discovered on ArtStation (courtesy of Batman Arkham Videos). Created by Rodrigue Pralier, who now works at Free Range Games, these were “early researches” for a “cancelled 2015 project.” They include an older-looking Bruce Wayne, Killer Croc, and Huntress.

What appears to be Damian is also front and center, dressed in the signature cowl. This new Batman title would have also reportedly featured the daughter of Black Mask, a revived Poison Ivy, and even Two-Face as The Judge (his more extreme law-abiding avatar).

As for current projects, WB Games allegedly pitched a title based on Game of Thrones. It’s unconfirmed whether it’s been approved. The team was also working on Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman before the studio was shuttered and the project cancelled.

Bloomberg’s recent report offered some updates while seemingly confirming the 2022 action RPG’s original live service model. Those plans were reportedly dropped halfway through development as the studio “struggled to make progress.” Though it wanted to develop a “1.5” iteration of Gotham Knights, the higher-ups were apparently not having it and relegated the studio to assisting other projects.

WB Games Montreal would subsequently pitch other projects, including John Constantine (which WB Games were noncommittal on) and the Flash (the latter not happening due to the 2023 film flopping). There have since been resignations among leadership due to “frustration with their corporate bosses,” according to sources. It’s helping with Wonder Woman, as reported last year and pitching a new title based on George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones. Whether it’s approved or not remains to be seen.

For more details on Gotham Knights, check out our review here. WB Games Montreal also assisted Rocksteady with Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, which saw its end of support last month.

While some would expect an update at Summer Game Fest on June 7th, that may not be the case. Kinda Funny’s Greg Miller reveals that he chatted with an insider in the past year who said, “This game’s troubled.” There weren’t any further details, and while Miller questioned what “troubled” could even mean, he didn’t believe the title was where Monolith wanted it to be.

As such, fans shouldn’t expect it this week, but it does raise some questions about WB Games. The publisher has come under fire for some of its titles, from the monetization in Mortal Kombat 1 to the entirety of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, the latter falling short of expectations. Regardless, we’ll have to wait and see how Monolith’s project turns out.

Wonder Woman doesn’t have platforms or a release window, but it’s confirmed to be an open world single-player title featuring the Nemesis System. It’s also seemingly receiving support from WB Games Montreal of Gotham Knights fame, per some listings.

The listing, published by WB Games Montreal for the position of External Development Artist, that the role’s “first mandate” will be to “work closely with our team and support the Monolith Productions team on their announced Wonder Woman game.”

In December of 2022, the LinkedIn profile of WB Games Montreal’s Bryan Theberge suggested that the studio’s own next title had also entered production.

WB Games has previously announced that Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman game will be an open world experience, and that it will use the Nemesis System from Monolith’s previous titles, Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and Middle-earth: Shadow of War.

Last November, job listings suggested that the game would feature live service elements, though WB Games clarified promptly afterward that Wonder Woman was being designed as a single-player action-adventure game.

Among the benefits of working on a smaller game, according to Sawyer, is that studios can minimise staff turnover that often happens between larger projects. Developers are also less likely to get burnt out while working on larger projects over the span of a few years.

Dianingana also speaks about the idea of having AAA studios working on smaller games, stating that it would improve variety in released games, as well as allowing the same studio to work on and release more games more often.

WB Games Montreal’s Mitch Dyer also responded to Dianingana’s post, stating that “AA games on a AAA budget with a AAA team would probably lead to the best games of all time”.

Would be nice to have big AAA studios "making" (not publishing) more small scope games (2years for example)

We would have more variety,experimenting
Releasing more games in the same company more often
Nice for the Mental to work on other things
Not everything has to be "BIG" pic.twitter.com/2YkIfNMi22

— Jeryce Dianingana | Cliffhanger Games (@JeryceDia) November 23, 2023

Obviously biased opinion but I'd also say that even "A" games can accomplish this. Execs are often not really concerned about devs' opinions on this stuff, but there's also a upside for the bottom line, which is staff retention (cont.). https://t.co/CkTRUzDK4f

— Josh Sawyer (@jesawyer) November 24, 2023

https://twitter.com/MitchyD/status/1728092475586408626

Recent leaks have claimed that a Nintendo Direct presentation is scheduled for sometime during the coming week. If accurate, it might be where WB Games chooses to officially announce Gotham Knights for Nintendo’s platform.

If the open world title is indeed coming to the Switch, it should be interesting to see how it fares on a technical level. Though the game was originally supposed to be a cross-gen release, its PS4 and Xbox One versions ended up getting cancelled, with WB Games Montreal citing the game’s “scale and scope” as the primary reason.

In our review of the game, we gave it a score of 7/10, saying, “Gotham Knights’ insistence on being a modern open world RPG leads to some gameplay issues and painfully generic mechanics, but there’s a lot of fun to be had here nonetheless, and an engaging story to experience. It may not be Arkham, but it’s good enough in its own right.” Read the full review through here.

Gotham Knights is currently available on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.