Warner Bros. is in an odd place at the moment, its fate hanging in the balance as it looks like Paramount is poised to acquire the entire business.
It's a deal worth a whopping $110 billion, and while the main attraction is the conglomerate's vast movie and TV empire, its video game business is of course part of the equation.
WB Games hasn't been in the best of places the last few years, and it's resulted in the loss of entire game studios as well as job cuts and project cancellations across the board.
Now, it seems as though one of its teams has shrunk yet again.
Several people have reported via LinkedIn that their jobs at WB Games Montréal have come to an abrupt end, as of Friday 13th March 2026. It suggests the studio has suffered another round of layoffs.
It's currently unknown just how many people have been affected. The same studio made 99 jobs redundant back in 2024.
WB Games Montréal is known for games like Batman: Arkham Origins and Gotham Knights, and was helping out Monolith Productions with Wonder Woman before that game was canned (and the studio closed).
At the time of writing, there doesn't appear to be any official statement on the matter. We'll update the story if new information surfaces.
[source gamesindustry.biz]
Comments 11
I had a lot of fun playing Gotham knights. Glad I didn’t listen to the reviews
@KillerBoy Same here. My play through essentially became “The Adventures of Barbara Gordon” and it was a lot of fun. I wasn’t a big fan of the ending, but getting there was entertaining.
Skydance Paramount has Skydance Interactive which makes VR games and Skydance Media where Amy Hennig is making Rise of Hydra so there is room for video game development after the merger but who knows how many studios they want to have?
I'd probably be worried if my company was being bought though.
Understandable, the game wasn’t bad but people probably wanted more Batman.
batman Arkham city is one of my favorite games, shame they didnt stick to doing what those games but executives...
I know its a different studio, but still part of WB Games - Hogwarts Legacy, one of the biggest selling SP games of modern times, got no DLC.
They could have easily released a large content DLC pack, which would have been comparatively cheap to make considering all the systems were there; plus even if they didn't want to do 'year 2', the main story ended with lots of time left in the school year (with only the house cup and side content to fill it).
Surely at least part of this team could have been used for this purpose, while Portkey work on a sequel.
i for one found gotham knights to be bland, uninspired and awkward. chances are this wouldn't have happened if they made a better game
I believe many were expecting Gotham Knights to be similar to Marvel's Avengers, where the game is focused on mundane, repetitive tasks rathet than a meaningful progress. It also didn't help that the game launched with performance issues.
Sad to see people at WB Montreal losing their jobs. I personally really enjoyed Batman: Arkham Origins, it was very good.
@rjejr The entire point of the deal is to acquire CNN so the Ellisons can turn it into another right wing disinformation machine like they did to 60 miniutes and CBS news. It's part of the standard fascist playbook - control the media.
I'm surprised to see no mention of Tencent considering they have a strong minority non-voting stake in Paramount/have collaborated with Skydance on various productions and are passive financial investors in the investment. It's not direct but it is influence in Hollywood/content. They stand to profit from dividends and valued growth if they go ahead with it, not to mention it would be venture-style investing in Western entertainment. They'd get access to HBO/DC/Gaming/Streaming and so on. It will be interesting to see if they manage to solidify a strategic foothold in Hollywood, it all depends on U.S. regulation of course, hence the passive role. That's how you avoid triggering a U.S. national security review on a major foreign investment. It's the same for a neutral shell company, U.S. regulation only goes so far.
I imagine they'll opt for no management control to avoid political problems while still having exposure in the deal (equally as beneficial) They don't want to run Warner Bros but they do want stronger ties with various franchises and an obvious profitable investment. Other companies like Amazon/Apple are pushing because it benefits their ecosystem and become a retention tool. The problem is that a tech company sees entertainment not as art but as infrastructure, they can monetize franchises across multiple industries, collect data and branch out to other products.
Then there's cultural influence too which shapes trends, attracts global audiences and strengthens brand visibility. I'm mainly focused on the potential shift in international distribution, it's a permanent revenue machine. Tencent also stands to gain access to some of my favorite DC franchise so obviously there is a concern there. They are still considered a National Security risk due to influence but you can go quite far when you fly the banner of a passive investment firm. It just means no voting control over board seats, or influence over management which Tencent don't even need or want. They are eyeing the big picture.
Gotham knights was so obviously designed to be a live service game
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