The upcoming sale of Warner Bros to Netflix for somewhere north of $82 billion is arguably one of the most monumental business deals in entertainment history, with very few areas of the industry remaining uninfluenced by it.
Though the complete details are still emerging, WB is seemingly set to sell everything to the streaming giant, with Netflix taking control of Warner Bros' film and TV production IPs. It now appears that this will also include the company's gaming division after some confusion over the details.
The latter is an interesting prospect because it has been one of the more haphazardly managed over the last few years, but there are some hugely valuable names counted amongst its slate.
The Warner Bros. Games section of the business includes huge developers like Traveller's Tales, who produce the LEGO games, as well as Arkham's Rocksteady Studios and Mortal Kombat developer NetherRealm Studios.
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Those three are arguably no longer the headline news, however, given just how successful Avalanche Studios' Hogwarts Legacy has become, and its future is now open to speculation given this sale.
Netflix Will be Risk Averse Following Acquisition
There are a few potential futures for Hogwarts Legacy 2, given this new context around the Netflix purchase.
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And in all fairness a lot of them look quite bright if you're a fan of the game and the franchise.
We recently learned that Hogwarts Legacy is the third most successful single-player game on the PS5 in terms of playtime, and it seems fans want to login to explore its halls over and over again.
As such, it really will be an absolute priority for the company as they look to rejuvenate the gaming portion of the Warner Bros business, a backbone that they can use to fund other gaming IPs in their repertoire.
They will likely also want to maximise revenue on this individual project, which may mean a different strategy to the first game, at least in terms of subsequent updates and full DLC.
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It's also important to remember that there are a ton of rumours circulating that this next game in the series will, at the very least, have some live service elements, if not become a full live service game.
This sale will only strengthen the potential of that.
As we likely all know, MMOs can either be the greatest income generators in the industry, or the most insane disasters that have the potential to bankrupt developers and publishers alike.
Fingers crossed Netflix sinks their not inconsiderable resources into this new portion of the gaming division, ideally without raising our subscription fees.
Topics: Hogwarts Legacy, Netflix, Warner Bros