Electronic Arts has just cut up one of it’s marquee upcoming games, the Black Panther game that Cliffhanger Games had been working on.
First reported by IGN, the information came from an email sent by EA Entertainment president Laura Miele, who shared that this change alongside others was to put their focus where they thought there was the opportunity for the most growth. Beyond Cliffhanger Games, and other recent cancellations like with Respawn and an untitled Titanfall project, people have been laid off on its mobile, and central teams. While this is believed to be less than was laid off last month’s 300 people, it is still a significant amount.
Cliffhanger Games was announced in 2023 along with the announcement of the Black Panther project, although formation of the team began in 2021 with Kevin Stephens, formerly of Monolith Productions tagged as the studio lead. From the getgo, the goal was to target an area that EA has seemingly had some trouble with – the open world adventure category, particularly with sandboxes.
Stephens, a former VP at Monolith, brought experience working on the Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War games which were successes in the genre, with Shadow of Mordor a particularly innovative title. Rumors that it was a Black Panther game they were doing began circulating in 2022, a year before it was revealed.
According to Miele, EA will be helping people find opportunities within EA, meaning that we may see less people laidoff than we would otherwise, instead merely having to uproot their lives at the whims of corporate decisions. The email also tells us a bit of what we can expect from EA Entertainment (Sports is it’s own division): a focus on a handful of franchises. Those will be Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, and Apex Legends. Miele states that the Iron Man game in work at Motive Studios will continue, as will the third Star Wars: Jedi game, and Bioware’s work on the next Mass Effect game. This comes also after they announced the pausing of various racing games that had been in the works earlier this month.
One missing game from that list however is the third unannounced Marvel game that EA signed a deal for back when they announced Iron Man as part of a 3 game deal. Whether that game continues, or if it is never to even be announced is unknown with EA souring on work with licensed properties. Of course, we should take any future plans with a grain of salt – only two months ago Cliffhanger Games was looking to fill a number of roles, and now it’s shutting down.
Thus we can add Black Panther to the long list of games we’ll never see, with its brief teaser being almost all the public footage that there is of it.
