Just like every other year, the Game Awards from 2021 came with a large number of game reveals and announcements alongside updates and new trailers for already announced games. One such announcement from this year’s event filled me and many others I know with joy and literally came out of nowhere. We are talking about Wonder Woman. After seeing the reveal is when I personally realized and thought to myself “wow, there’s never been a solo Wonder Woman game ever before” and that realization led me to ponder what this game is going to be like. In the entirety of the DC heroes’ roster, there is no single hero that is as inspiring, honest, innocent yet very mature, nurturing, and graceful as Diana Prince, The Wonder Woman herself and I cannot begin to tell you how excited and happy I am after seeing this announcement. Let’s take a look at what was shown, what we know, and what we are expecting from Warner bros. Wonder Woman.
What Do We Know?
The announcement trailer barely showed anything as it was roughly 50 seconds long and basically acted as a notice to let us know, this game is coming. But from those 50 seconds, we got to know the team developing this game and that studio is Monolith. This news alone is more than enough confirmation that the game is in the right hands. The team at Monolith are extremely talented and are the folks behind bringing the world of the Lord of The Rings to life with their Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor and its sequel Middle Earth Shadow of War.
With that knowledge, it’s safe to say that the combat system and the story will be top-tier when it comes to quality. Based on the free-flow combat system from the Batman Arkham Games, Monolith added their own medieval, Middle Earth spin to it by making the combat sword friendly, more primeval, and ghastlier, and adding the necessary weight behind every swing Talion and Celebrimbor made. The medieval touch can and will work wonders for our beloved Wonder Woman as she herself is a warrior and is quite well versed in the art of swords and shields.
Other than that, we’ll leave the speculation part for the next section, but Monolith had this to say in a press release:
Wonder Woman is a single-player, third-person, open-world, action-adventure game that will introduce a new and original story set in the DC Universe and allow players to become Diana of Themyscira in the fight to unite her Amazon family and humans from the modern world.
Along with this they also added that
“Powered by the Nemesis system, gamers will forge deep connections with both enemies and allies as they progress from a heroic fighter into a proven leader.” and finally “we’re excited to push the open-world genre forward combining cutting edge action with inventive narratives to create a Wonder Woman game everyone will want to play.”
Wow, that’s a lot of information of sorts for a game that was just announced but these have been all the things we know for a fact, that will be a part of the Wonder Woman game. I am interested in seeing how the Nemesis system will play out in this game, other than that an open-world narrative-based Wonder Woman game sounds just about right to me. Now, let’s jump into speculation territory.
What Do We Expect?
Let’s wear our tinfoil hats from this point onwards as everything we are going to discuss is sheer speculation and the things we want to see personally in this game. None of this is confirmed but we hope at least some of this comes to pass.
The first thing I hope for with a game like this is for it to be an open-world, now that Monolith has confirmed that for us, let’s think about what the world is going to be like. Themyscira is pretty much expected in the new as a Wonder Woman game. Without it, I will feel very out of place, as the chain of islands of Themyscira will be perfect for lush jungles, underwater areas, and the ancient cities rich with the architecture of the Amazons. But that’s not going to be all, right? What about the world outside? A cityscape will be perfect for Wonder Woman to traverse at super-high speeds and perhaps even fly as she does in some comics? If these two different environments do come to pass then it begs the question, how will the worlds be connected? A portal? Or maybe, Themyscira will be a hub world of sorts where you come to level up and interact with your sisters (:p). We’ll have to wait and see.
Open-World:
The open world begs another question when it comes to the game, what era will the game be set in? Old school like in the Wonder Woman movies or more modern-day? Both timelines will be perfect if you ask me but if I have to pick then I hope the game takes place in a modern-day setting so it can be part of the Arkham-verse. Suicide Squad Kills the Justice League also features Wonder Woman in it and it’d be incredible to use the same character and either continue in the already established universe or perhaps tell a different story with her. The reason I want her to be a part of the Arkham verse is that I’d love to see other heroes like Superman interact with Wonder Woman and learn about all the tales of heroism The Justice League has to share with us. By chance, it’s not part of the Arkham-verse, which is the more likely outcome, even then I cannot complain as I just simply want to see what the game is going to be like and then play the crap out of it.
The story can be anything and the setting will be determined by the story of course and again I don’t mind which direction it goes. My hope will be that Diana is a more experienced and established Wonder Woman in her career but judging by the voice line in the trailer and the use of the word “leader” by Monolith themselves, more or less confirms that this will be an origin story. Whatever the tale maybe I am certain monolith will nail it out of the park.
Cosmetics & Combat:
The last few things I want to touch on are the activities, side content, cosmetics, and combat. Again, all of this will be dependent on the direction of the story and the era the game is set in but that won’t stop us from speculating now, would it?
There is no doubt that we’ll get alternate costumes and looks for Diana to try out, such as the tradition with all superhero games. How we’ll unlock said costumes and what they’ll possibly be is another story. Some original armor piece which I am sure WB will allow Monolith to build, I am personally hoping to see suits from the Justice League animated series and the costumes worn by Gal Gadot herself in the Wonder Woman movie.
Side content and activities can be literally anything but I am hoping they won’t involve much with clearing out the map and stuff and will truly let us unleash the true power of this Amazonian princess. Maybe we’ll get to build relationships with other members from the cast and perhaps even fall in love with the likes of Steve Trevor if he happens to be in the game. Choice can also play a role in the gameplay systems but I doubt you’ll get the “good guy, bad guy” choice here as we are talking about Wonder Woman here. We may also get some pseudo if not full-blown RPG systems involving skill trees, level-ups, and weapon and armor power levels. Who knows? The content in the game should focus on quality over quantity and it’ll make a lot of players happy and keep them satiated.
Finally, this is where the rabbit hole gets way deeper than anyone’s liking but I am hoping this Wonder Woman game leads to a Superman game. DC has been on a tear lately when it comes to video games and there is no doubt in my mind that a Superman game is on the table and they are testing the waters with other characters because in all reality, making a Superman game will be really really hard. Whatever gets them there is all I have to say and if they can nail Wonder Woman perfectly then there’s no doubt, they can do the same for Superman.
Whatever the game ends up being I just hope it will be good and, in my heart, I know it’ll be very good. Wonder Woman means a lot to a lot of DC fans and it’s incredible news for comic book nerds like myself that she is finally getting the love she deserves in the world of video games. There is no release date in sight for this game but my guess would be 2023 at the earliest if not 2024. Or maybe they’ll surprise us with an early release, who knows? Take your time and make it the best superhero game and one that’ll be remembered for years to come to Monolith and WB is all I’ll say. We’ll wait.
