Mortal Kombat and MultiVersus may be in danger.
According to a recent report, the company Warner Bros. Discovery continues to experience difficulties. The executives are considering selling some divisions, including the gaming one. This means the titles developed and published by Warner Bros. Games may face an uncertain future.
Warner Bros. Discovery and Warner Bros. Games
The report was published by the Financial Times. It stated that Warner Bros. Discovery is struggling because of the recent stock price drop. To solve the problem, the company’s CEO, David Zaslav, and senior management are considering various options, including selling the part in the game development business.
Some rumors about the financial troubles of Warner Bros. Discovery appeared right after the two companies merged back in 2022. There was even information about the ideas of splitting Warner Bros. and Discovery to recover in terms of stock price. That would create a lot of legal issues, though, like ownership of IPs.
The potential decision to sell Warner Bros. Games may cut expenses of the company, remove obstacles for splitting, and even decrease the breakup value for some other steps.
Titles by Warner Bros. Games
Warner Bros. Games includes quite a few studios that have released various titles, such as Hogwarts Legacy and the Batman: Arkham series. If the report is correct, the biggest concerns arise about the currently ongoing games: Mortal Kombat 1 and MultiVersus.
Mortal Kombat 1 is apparently losing the competition to the other two big fighting games, TEKKEN 8 and Street Fighter 6. It can be clearly felt by the low numbers of attendees at such events as EVO 2024: 4,651 people registered for TEKKEN 8 and only 642 for Mortal Kombat 1.
The developers have announced the next portion of content for Mortal Kombat 1, and they should follow the plan. However, we don’t know what’s coming next in this situation. The company laid off the whole division of mobile games in July 2024 and shut down the game Mortal Kombat: Onslaught.
MultiVersus got Season 2 just recently, and it seems like the game is quite alive. Still, the development process was shaky, and the public doesn’t know how successful the free-to-play model is. We can notice a lack of esports support for the title as well. The next Mortal Kombat 1 Final Kombat is also nowhere to be seen.
We’ll keep an eye on news and updates about Warner Bros. Discovery and its gaming projects. Stick around on esports.gg!