Despite scrapping its Black Panther game and the studio that was making it, EA claims to be committed to its partnership with Marvel.
AAA superhero games seem to be cursed at the moment. Marvel’s Wolverine continues to be MIA, following the disastrous hacking incident in 2023, DC’s Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League was a financial bomb, and the long anticipated Wonder Woman game was cancelled before we got to see any of it.
Now, it’s been confirmed that EA’s Black Panther game, which was formally announced less than two years ago as the debut title for Cliffhanger Games, will also never see the light of day.
On top of that, Cliffhanger Games itself is being shut down, with members of EA’s central and mobile development teams to be laid off too.
An internal email, sent out by EA Entertainment president Laura Miele, described the news as an attempt to ‘sharpen our focus and put our creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities.’
There’s no official confirmation of how many people are being let go from the company, but IGN believes the number of affected employees is less than the 300 to 400 who EA let go only last month.
‘These decisions are hard, Miele added. ‘They affect people we’ve worked with, learned from, and shared real moments with. We’re doing everything we can to support them – including finding opportunities within EA, where we’ve had success helping people land in new roles.’
As disastrous as all these recent layoffs at EA are, one rumour claims they’re only set to get worse. In the wake of Black Panther’s cancellation, Xbox Game Pass leaker extas1s took to X to say he’s heard roughly 400 more employees will be let go. This apparently includes the closure of F1 25 developer Codemasters.
While these claims have yet to be corroborated, it’s easy to be worried for Codemasters when it lost the WRC licence earlier this month, with EA announcing it was ‘pausing development plans on future rally titles.’
It’s especially worrying as EA’s use of the F1 licence runs out this year, following the launch of F1 25, which in this context seems a very ominous omen.
Last year, EA said it would be moving away from working on licensed IP to focus on its own franchises; something Miele reiterated in her email.
Despite this, EA has insisted that its partnership with Marvel is still in effect. This deal was announced as consisting of three games: Black Panther, an Iron Man title at Motive Studio, and a third game that’s still under wraps.
‘Our partnership with Marvel remains strong and our multi-title, long-term collaboration continues,’ said Miele. Whether this means EA will cook up a replacement for Black Panther or stick to only two games is unclear.
Little was known about the Black Panther project outside of it being an open world single-player game, although one of the first rumours about it (before it was even announced) claimed that you would play as a brand new character who would take up the mantle, rather than T’Challa himself.
Allegedly leaked concept art from a user survey apparently confirms this. According to notfunEman on X, T’Challa would be kidnapped by the Skrull alien race and his son would be one of several playable characters.
Black Panther fans will hopefully still get the chance to play as the superhero in next year’s Marvel 1943: Rise Of Hydra, though that one doesn’t star T’Challa either but instead his grandfather, Azzuri.
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