Image via Cliffhanger Games

EA Cancels Black Panther Game and Closes Cliffhanger Studio Along With it [UPDATED]

EA Continues to Announce Layoffs and Cancel Games Amid a Poor Performance of Core Titles

Patrick Smith
May 28, 2025

According to a report by IGN’s Rebekah Valentine, EA announced internally that they were cancelling their Black Panther game, which had been in the works since 2023, and the developer that was created to make it, Cliffhanger Games.

Very little was known about the game, besides being a single-player action-adventure game, but it was a part of a bigger Marvel deal, which included an Iron Man game and a third, unannounced game. The Iron Man game is reportedly safe, and there’s no further details about the third game.

This cancellation and layoffs come after similar announcements by EA last month, which included layoffs at Respawn and the cancellation of an unannounced Titanfall game. EA has said it's trying to focus on its core games instead of new projects in order to turn around poor performances by games that underdelivered, such as EA FC 25 and Dragon Age: The Veilguard.

**Update:

New details surrounding the abrupt cancellation of EA's Black Panther game have come out thanks to a report by Bloomberg.

According to their reporting, despite the game passing an internal milestone in March, progress on the game was lagging behind what EA's executives were expecting for the game. The team at Cliffhanger was experimenting with a "Nemesis" system, which involves characters and enemies evolving over time in response to the player's choices in the story. Some of the developers at Cliffhanger came from the studio behind Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, the popular Lord of the Rings game that used the same system.

Apparently, the game was going to feature playable versions of T’Challa, Killmonger and Shuri — who would all be competing for the Black Panther mantle. The main villains were going to be the Skrulls, and they'd be invading Wakanda. The player would choose one of the heroes, and the remaining heroes would evolve into rivals using the Nemesis-like system.

The studio was reportedly struggling to staff up, develop this Nemesis-like system, and create an early slice (a small demonstration of the graphics for execs to review) all at the same time. The studio was created in 2021 to make this game, but it now appears progress was extremely slow, ultimately influencing EA's decision to cancel the game.

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