Here we go again?
It’s been a weird few years for the developers under the umbrella of Warner Bros. Games, and that includes the makers of Mortal Kombat, Injustice and MultiVersus especially.
Amid their continuing financial issues and fallen stocks, Warner Bros. Discovery is reportedly looking to offload their gaming division… again.
In a new report from the Financial Times, CEO David Zaslav and other top executives are currently weighing their options to cut costs and get more cash in their hands with multiple potential roads ahead of them.
While there were discussions and rumors about Warner Bros. and Discovery splitting back up into separate companies again after just merging in 2022, a “nuclear” move that drastic would likely lock up both sides in legal issues and disputes for years to come.
So instead of trying to determine who would own what and how movies and TV shows would be handled, WBD is reportedly looking to sell off their smaller and more detached assets — including the gaming division.
The Financial Times words it as a “stake in Warner’s video game business,” so it’s not immediately clear if WBD would be trying to offload their publisher and studios in a package deal or try and piecemeal them out to buyers (and maybe still try and keep some for themselves).
NetherRealm Studios has been under the ownership of Warner since the media giant bought the developers following Midway’s bankruptcy in 2010.
On top of that, WBD also just acquired MultiVersus’ studio Player First Games a few weeks ago.
Should a big sale come to pass in the near future, the full ramifications of the move are still unknown though could be pretty drastic.
If say Microsoft were to grab NRS, it’s unclear if they’d get to take the Mortal Kombat rights with them or if WB would hold onto the IP that they view as a valuable asset.
Mortal Kombat 1 just revealed the Kahos Reigns expansion with a new Story Mode and six more fighters with Cyrax, Sektor and Noob Saibot plus guests Conan the Barbarian, Terminator’s T-1000 and Scream’s Ghostface.
One would hope that their current contracts would mean the developers could complete their planned content for MK1 if they do get bought out, but beyond that would be a big question mark.
Player First Games would likely be in an even rougher spot considering their only game, MultiVersus, is based completely on Warner Bros.’ other IP like DC Comics, Scooby-Doo and Cartoon Network.
Maybe that would be enough for WB to keep the studio they literally just bought, but a split could potentially spell the end for the platform fighter that finally released in May.
This isn’t the first time rumors and reports have circulated about WB Games being up for sale with AT&T looking into the move back in 2020 where Microsoft and EA were reportedly among those interested.
That was followed up by more talk in 2022, but obviously nothing ever came of that with the merger going down with Discovery that year.
NetherRealm was among the teams hit with layoffs already from WBD that included dropping their entire mobile games division and shuttering Mortal Kombat: Onslaught that they launched not even a year ago.
Warner did report that Mortal Kombat 1 had sold around 3 million copies about a month after launch last year though there’s been no updates on the game’s performance since.
We’ve heard this a few times now, but the future is looking fairly uncertain again for everyone under the WB Games umbrella.