EA has cancelled its Black Panther video game, in what’s a particularly troubling chapter in the ongoing wave of industry layoffs.
As reported by IGN, the news came from Laura Miele, head of EA Entertainment. Laura revealed in an internal email that EA will also be closing Black Panther’s studio, Cliffhanger Games, as part of a third wave of layoffs this year. Miele’s division is separate from EA Sports, so her announcement does not include them.
IGN’s sources claim that there will be less laid off than the 300 last month from Respawn and their customer service department. However, extas1s claims on Twitter that Cliffhanger Games is not the only casualty.
Following news that EA already laid off and moved staff out of Codemasters, extas1s says that EA plans to close the 39 year old game studio entirely. He claims there will be 400 layoffs in total, and remaining staff will be moved to a studio called EA SP, to continue work on F1 games as well as an upcoming Need For Speed.
There’s an extra layer to Cliffhanger Games’ closure we need to address here as well. As we’ve learned from Jason Schreier, the entire reason this studio exists is because of turmoil in WB Games Studio, Monolith Productions. After WB Games cancelled their unannounced pet project Legacy, frustrated Monolith developers left the studio to form Cliffhanger Games. They then made the deal with EA and Marvel that led to the announcement of the Black Panther game all the way back in 2023. You can see pictures from this Black Panther game in tweets we have embedded throughout this article.
As for Codemasters, they had been largely an independent game studio in the last 30+ years, but were approached in 2020 to be acquired by Take-Two Interactive. However, Take-Two bowed out of the deal after EA outbid them in the last minute, to the tune of $ 1.2 billion. While we know that Take-Two Interactive was also part of the wave of layoffs and studio closures of the past three years, one wonders what could have happened if they didn’t go forward with the EA deal.
We don’t believe that EA would want to have all of this hanging over their heads, of course. Apparently all of this, and the layoffs at Respawn last month, can be attributed to seriously low performance for Apex Legends that was at such a level that it forced EA to fundamentally change their entire business.
Miele’s email stated that EA Entertainment will be focusing on a core group of games, including Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, as well as Apex. Bioware is still slated to make their next Mass Effect game, and EA confirmed that their deal with Marvel, which still includes Motive’s Iron Man game an unannounced title, is still good to go.
Among other things, the timing of this announcement and its accompanying rumors hit particularly hard, days before June, the biggest month for video game announcement in the year. We wish the best for the people at Cliffhanger Games, and we’re certainly hoping rumors about Codemasters aren’t true. We do hope those who will be leaving EA will find placement back in the video game industry.
