A new report from Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier revealed a lot about the now-canceled Black Panther game from EA and Cliffhanger Studios. The report discusses a number of the challenges the game faced in its four years of development and some details about what the game would have included if it had been able to get across the finish line.
According to Schreier’s report, EA’s decision to cancel Black Panther and close Cliffhanger Games came down to the game not being far enough along in its development. Sources told Schreier that executives at EA were “frustrated” with the game still being in its pre-production phase, and that even though the game had recently gained some momentum, it was all seemingly too little too late in the minds of EA’s top brass.
As to why development was moving at a slower pace, the report points to two key factors, the first being the fact that since Cliffhanger was only founded in 2021, the studio was still in the process of expanding and scaling its team to support the development of a big triple-A Black Panther game. The other falls to the studio’s ambitions with the game, which was to create a system similar to Monolith’s famous Nemesis system, and the issues that come with developing procedural narrative games, and then showcasing the game to executives.
According to the report, the game “was to feature various playable heroes from the comic-book universe, such as T’Challa, Killmonger and Shuri, all competing for the mantle of Black Panther,” and that Marvel’s infamous shapeshifting aliens, the Skrulls, would have been allies to the heroes.
However, as Skrulls are known to do, some would have posed as allies, and “others might have remembered the player’s behavior and acted accordingly,” which is where similarities to the nemesis system come into play.
But the slow progress in the game’s development and EA executives seemingly not being able to see how the game would shape up led to the news that was revealed earlier this week, and EA’s third mass layoff this year alone.
Despite Black Panther being canceled, both EA and Marvel claim that their relationship “remains strong,” and that EA will still develop three games based on Marvel characters, the first being Motive’s Iron Man game.
