Warner Bros. Games is undergoing a company-wide shake-up, setting a new leadership team and restructuring its divisions based on four of its key franchises: Mortal Kombat, Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and DC Universe titles.
As reported by Variety, three current studio heads have been promoted to senior vice president: Warner Bros Games Montréal head Yves Lachance will now oversee development teams for Harry Potter and Game of Thrones titles, NetherRealm studio head Shaun Himmerick will do the same for Mortal Kombat and DC Universe games, and Warner Bros. Games New York studio chief Steven Flenory will oversee game and publishing technology, customer service, quality assurance and user research.
Fortunately, the company’s overhaul and leadership changes will not result in any layoffs or the exit of any studio executives.
“Our company is home to some of the biggest franchises in the world, and we are optimizing our team structure to develop long-term franchise roadmaps to delight players and fans of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Mortal Kombat and DC games,” said Global Streaming & Games CEO J.B. Perrette in a statement.
“We are very fortunate to have a strong stable of development and technology talent, and Yves, Shaun and Steven are respected leaders with excellent track records in their areas of expertise. I’m looking forward to working closely with them and the team as we work to make the best games possible for our key franchises.”
This restructuring follows a strategy laid out by Warner Bros. in late 2024, to which the company revealed its plans to double down on the four key titles and IPs after a string of disappointments like Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and the free-to-play brawler MultiVersus, with both titles severely underperforming and leading to million-dollar revenue losses for the company.
The changes also fall in line with other smaller-scale shake-ups at Warner Bros., including Warner Bros. Discovery’s split onto two media companies, Global Networks and Streaming & Studios, and the changing of naming conventions for its streaming service HBO Max, with reverted back to its original name after two years of rebranding as Max.
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
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