Surprisingly, we have an update on Codename Legacy, the Monolith Productions game that Warner Bros. cancelled and will never even be released.
Two weeks ago, we reported on Jason Schreier’s leaks about the behind the scenes situation at WB Games when they decided to cancel the Wonder Woman game, and close Monolith Productions, WB Games San Diego, and Player First Games.
Schreier painted a picture of Warner Bros. management who strung their developers along with the promise of listening to their pitches for new games, with no intention to actually greenlight their original ideas. Regarding Codename Legacy, what Schreier shared was that it would be an expansion of their Nemesis system in service of an original story.
But we didn’t know what that original story and game idea was until now.
Jez Corden shared what he was told in the latest episode of the Xbox Two podcast. Interestingly, he knew that Schreier also talked about Codename Legacy, but he hadn’t heard what Schreier said yet.
Corden described it as a similar concept to Silicon Knights’ Too Human. If Too Human had a Norse technomagic setting, Codename Legacy had a Greek technomagic setting. We should not have to explain to you that the Monolith Productions that was coming off of Middle-earth: Shadow of War was nowhere in the same position as Silicon Knights was when they made Too Human. Call it a hunch, but we think Monolith’s title was more likely to turn out well than Silicon Knights’ did.
And Jez was told that the game was turning out well. At this point, Corden corroborated many details from Schreier’s account. That could mean that they had the same source. But we can also take it as a sign that separate sources sharing the same information makes it more credible that these BTS leaks are accurate.
Like Schreier, Corden claimed that it was using the Nemesis system and taking it to the next level. It was going to be an action RPG with factions and multiple alignments. That’s a clear expansion from the Shadow of Mordor games, which neatly positioned the player in conflict with the forces of Sauron.
Corden also confirmed that WB Games made a decision not to publish original games in favor of games using their most high-profile IP. Monolith tried to shoehorn one of those IPs into Codename Legacy, but Corden didn’t share what it was.
Corden comes to the same conclusion that Schreier did; that WB Games was a poor video game publisher for literally rejecting money on the table in form of games that their own developers wanted to make.
Now, save if someone leaks a Codename Legacy build (and do the Batgirl movie while you’re at it leakers!), we won’t be seeing anything about this game, and we won’t know if it could have been good.
