In July 2023, following several rumors, Electronic Arts confirmed to be working on a Black Panther game in development by Cliffhanger Games, a Seattle-based studio founded in 2021 by Kevin Stephens. At the time, EA said it would be a third-person single player action/adventure game featuring an original story.
After quite a bit of silence on the project (which is supposed to launch after Motive’s Iron Man game), Laura Miele (president of EA Entertainment and Technology) revealed some interesting tidbits about the Black Panther game while she discussed the company’s efforts in the $20 billion action/adventure and action/RPG segment of the market during EA’s Investor Day 2024.
Next is our studio in Seattle, Cliffhanger Games, and its renowned leadership team known for innovative action RPGs such as Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor. Black Panther will be a love letter to fans combining vibrant characters, the world of Wakanda, an original story, and all-new technology, delivering groundbreaking design and storytelling that will actually transfer across many games and studios in our company.
The most interesting piece of info is the new tech hinted at by Miele. The new technology will deliver ‘groundbreaking design and storytelling’ not only in the Black Panther game but also in future EA games, as it will be used by other internal teams, too.
No further details were shared at this time (the game is still in early production), but it’s hard not to connect the dots. Kevin Stephens, the founder of Cliffhanger Games, was originally a Director of Engineering at Monolith Productions before becoming its Vice President and Studio Head. As such, he certainly had extensive knowledge of the Nemesis system featured in Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War.
At the time, the Nemesis system was praised for creating unique moments between the player and the NPCs; while far from flawless, it hasn’t been replicated in any other game to date. It’s possible Cliffhanger is working on a similar concept, perhaps empowered by generative AI (which is being used extensively at EA). We’ll have to wait for actual Black Panther game details to know for sure, but it is certainly an intriguing prospect.
