Panther

Electronic Arts has canceled its Black Panther game and closed down developer Cliffhanger Games. IGN, which first reported the news, cites an internal email in which EA Entertainment president Laura Miele notified staff about the changes made to “sharpen our focus and put our creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities.”

“These decisions are hard,” Miele wrote, per IGN. “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.”

The email continues, detailing that EA will now shift resources to the historically successful Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, and Apex Legends series. Miele also said that a game based on Iron Man is still in the works, as is the third entry in Respawn’s Star Wars Jedi series and BioWare’s next entry in Mass Effect.

EA previously laid off around 300 employees across both Respawn Entertainment and Electronic Art’s Fan Care teams in April 2025. Variety reported at the time that EA had effectively canceled the next Titanfall game and another unnamed game in “early-stage incubation.”

Polygon has contacted EA for comment and will update this story with any further information we receive.

Black Panther was first announced by Marvel Games, EA, and Cliffhanger Games in 2023. The game was part of a three-game deal that Marvel Games reached with EA that also includes an Iron Man game developed by Motive. EA established the Seattle-based Cliffhanger Games in 2023 to work on the Black Panther game, which coincided with the 57th anniversary of the hero. The studio, led by former Monolith executive Kevin Stephens, was staffed by developers known for working on series like Halo, God of War, and Call of Duty.

According to a Marvel press release, the Black Panther game was set to be “an original, third-person, single-player Black Panther game…that empowers players to experience what it is like to take on the mantle of Wakanda’s protector, the Black Panther.”

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EA is cancelling its Black Panther game and closing the studio creating it, Cliffhanger Games, as part of a larger round of layoffs at the company, IGN reports. The third-person action-adventure game was originally announced in July 2023 as one of several Marvel projects being developed at EA studios.

IGN writes that a smaller number of people are being laid off than the previous round of cuts that impacted Titanfall developer Respawn, but EA is still eliminating roles outside of Cliffhanger, including people on the publisher’s “mobile and central teams.” EA is reportedly telling staff that the layoffs are a way to “sharpen our focus and put our creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities.”

As of right now, those “opportunities” include an Iron Man game in development at EA Motive, the next Star Wars Jedi game from Respawn, and new entries in a few key franchises, like The Sims, Battlefield, Skate and Apex Legends. Beyond that, the company has EA Sports and the next Mass Effect game, though Bioware has gone through multiple rounds of layoffs since 2023, so there’s uncertainty there, too. In a similar way to how it approached Bioware’s restructuring, IGN reports that EA is trying to find roles for at least some Cliffhanger Games staff in other parts of the company.

Engadget has contacted EA for comment and will update this article if we hear back.

EA growing disinterest in licensed games as been public since at least February 2024, when CEO Andrew Wilson announced that the company was “moving away from development of future licensed IP that we do not believe will be successful in our changing industry.” The company recently announced a new strategy game using the Star Wars license — Star Wars Zero Company — but that seems more like an outlier than the norm.

EA’s Black Panther game wasn’t the only project featuring the character — Amy Hennig’s Marvel 19943: Rise of Hydra hasn’t been cancelled yet — but it does seems strange the company gave up so easily. Black Panther made over $1.3 billion during its original run in theaters. It seems entirely possible the same audience that enjoyed the movie would show up for a new game featuring their favorite Marvel character.

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EA cancels Black Panther game, closes developer Cliffhanger Games

EA cancels Black Panther game and closes studio developing it