Image credit: Warner Bros. Games
Warner Bros. Games has teased a promising future for its upcoming slate of titles by promising more from the company’s established IPs.
As shared by Geoff Keighley on X, Warner Bros. Games CEO JB Perrette has said the studio will “return to some of our biggest franchises”. The cryptic, but encouraging statement, has led gamers to hope for a revisit to Middle-earth or another instalment in the Batman Arkham franchise.
Naturally, the door is also open for a Hogwarts Legacy sequel, but we could also see a follow-up to Mortal Kombat 1. Considering the poor reception (and shuttering) of Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League, I’m willing to bet we’re probably not getting another live-service co-op shooter out of this – if we’re lucky.
The news arrives while Warner Bros. is being acquired by Netflix, a deal valued at a staggering $82.7bn. While the streaming giant had won the company’s film and television studios, including HBO Max and the entirety of the DC Universe, the investment saw its gaming division deemed “relatively minor compared to the grand scheme of things”.
That isn’t to say that Warner Bros. Games doesn’t have anything decent-looking in the pipeline. We just received a brand-new Lego Batman: Legacy of the Dark Knight trailer, with a recreation of the famous museum scene from Batman (1989). The game arrives on May 26, 2026, but then we’re likely to be waiting another 12 months for something more substantial.
Which WB Games franchises could be coming back?
A Hogwarts Legacy sequel makes the most sense for Warner Bros. Games to re-emerge with. The open-world Harry Potter game was massively popular and went on to sell over 40 million units as of December last year. Hogwarts Legacy 2 would be a logical business move for the studio, particularly amid the Netflix deal.
With that said, I would much rather get a sequel to Mortal Kombat 1, which could confusingly be called Mortal Kombat 2 (no, not the movie or the arcade game). Despite not being as beloved in the FGC as the likes of Tekken or Street Fighter, the ultraviolent fighter’s total unit sales still exceed 100 million copies, and the timing for next year would still (largely) cash in on the hype of the film.
Also possible is a new Batman Arkham game. Not counting the aforementioned live-service spin-off, the previous entry in the franchise was the VR-exclusive Batman: Arkham Shadow from October 2024. Developed by Camouflag and published by Meta, it (likely) wasn’t the Arkham Knight follow-up fans were hoping for. A proper game within the timeline of the original trilogy would garner hype.
As incredible as it would be to see a third Middle-earth game, that reality seems incredibly unlikely. The studio behind the duology of open-world Lord of the Rings games, Monolith Productions, was shut down in 2025. Considering how Shadow of War ends, a continuation of that franchise would be challenging to pull off, save for a prequel.
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