It’ll Be a Couple Years Before We See the First DCU Video Game, James Gunn Says, but First: Fortnite

DC Studios co-chiefs James Gunn and Peter Safran have confirmed it will be a couple of years before fans see the first DCU video game.

Speaking at a DC Studios presentation attended by IGN, Gunn and Safran said everything DC, from movies to video games, now runs up through the co-chiefs, which means they get to see projects at their earliest stages and work closely with video game development teams such as Mortal Kombat maker NetherRealm and Batman developer Rocksteady on character design and story.

“We work incredibly closely with JB Perrette [CEO and President, Global Streaming and Games], who runs that division, and it’s really the first time it’s ever been this way at Warner Brothers,” Safran explained.

“James and I sit with literally the guys that run the studios underneath JB, whether it’s NetherRealm or whether it’s Rocksteady, sit with them and talk about characters and stories that we’re interested in and that they’re interested in.”

Gunn added: “We see designs for the projects in their very earliest stages. We talk about those. We talk about when they’re talking about what the story might be, we say, ‘Well, maybe you want to go this way because we’re planning on maybe doing something with this character and so forth and so on,’ and help to deal with that.”

“But it’s been great, and we’ve enjoyed it enormously,” Safran said. “Everything had been so siloed, and now that’s completely broken down, and it’s been great. Because it also applies to consumer products and experiences and everything that DC touches runs up through us now, which is awesome.”

As for when the first game in the DCU will be revealed, Gunn said “a couple of years.”

“Yeah, it’s a couple years, but we’ve had some pretty active involvement in some stuff coming up,” Safran continued. “It’s really interesting.”

Warner Bros. Games has had an extremely difficult 12 months, first with the catastrophic release of Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, then the disappointing release of Smash Bros.-style brawler MultiVersus.

Warner Bros. Discovery has said Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s failure contributed to a $200 million hit to its business, and MultiVersus added another $100 million on top. Warner Bros. Games’ only other recent release was Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions, which failed to make an impression.

Speaking in a financial call, Warner Bros. Discovery President and CEO David Zaslav said: “We recognise [the games business] is substantially underperforming its potential right now.”

Since then, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League post-launch content has come to an end with the delivery of its year one roadmap, and Warner Bros. has announced the impending closure of MultiVersus. Rocksteady, meanwhile, has suffered significant layoffs.

There are also question marks over Mortal Kombat 1’s financial performance, although NetherRealm chief Ed Boon recently announced over five million sales and teased future DLC following the release of the T-1000 Terminator guest character.

During the same financial call, Zaslav said Warner Bros. was doubling down on just four games: Hogwarts Legacy (a sequel is already in the works), Mortal Kombat, Game of Thrones, and DC, “in particular Batman.”

“We are focusing our development efforts on those core franchises, with proven studios to improve our success ratio,” Zaslav added.

Earlier this month, a new report shed light on the turmoil at Warner Bros. Games, while providing an update on the various projects in the works at its developers. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier reported on concern about the upcoming slate of games from Warner Bros. Games following the exit of chief David Haddad.

Bloomberg said Monolith Productions’ Wonder Woman game is in trouble after reportedly rebooting and switching directors early last year. It’s already cost more than $100 million and is still years away from release, Bloomberg added.

Gotham Knights developer WB Games Montreal, meanwhile, pitched a John Constantine game but it was never approved. A Flash game was scrapped after the DCU Flash film bombed. It’s now helping out with other games and is reportedly working on a pitch for a new Game of Thrones game.

Hogwarts Legacy developer Avalanche is, as officially announced, working on new content for Hogwarts Legacy as well as a sequel.

And following the failure of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, Rocksteady “is looking to return to Batman for a single-player game,” but according to Bloomberg it’s years away. There was no word in Bloomberg’s report on what’s next from NetherRealm.

One question is whether Rocksteady’s new Batman video game will be a continuation of its much-loved Arkham series or a DCU video game. There is currently no indication that Monolith Productions’ troubled Wonder Woman game is a DCU video game. So far, no DCU video games have been announced, although in prior comments Gunn has said they will be triple-A titles, as opposed to movie tie-ins.

In the shorter term, it seems more DC crossovers are coming to Fortnite.

“When you talk about interaction with our video game guys, with our gaming department, those are also things that historically there wasn’t a lot of collaboration on,” Safran said. “Now it’s, hey, we’re talking to Fortnite. Which characters should we focus on? Literally, James is signing off on designs.”

“I’m giving notes on designs,” Gunn confirmed.

Given the first DCU movie, Superman, launches in July, a potential crossover with Fortnite perhaps comes as no surprise.

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.