EA announces Black Panther game from Shadow of Mordor creator

10 July 2023 , 16:00

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Black Panther is returning to video games with a second brand new title featuring the character in development (Image: Capcom)

EA has announced it's developing a game based on the Marvel Comics hero Black Panther, with the brand new studio Cliffhanger Games in charge of development on the game.

Adding to the ever-growing list of Marvel titles is a Black Panther game courtesy of EA. The title was announced today as the project from the newly opened Cliffhanger Games studio – headed by Kevin Stephens, who worked on the Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor games as well as a litany of WB Games titles like Batman: Arkham City, Scribblenauts and 2011's Mortal Kombat reboot. Marvel Games announced the game earlier today, in celebration of the anniversary of the debut of the Black Panther character in Fantastic Four #52 in July 1961.

The title was first rumoured around a year ago from Giant Bomb's Jeff Grubb ( Via Eurogamer ) who reported that a Black Panther single-player open world game was in development at the Seattle studio, and that it will focus on a new character attempting to become the new Black Panther after the death of an earlier incarnation. Despite both featuring the character, the game has no connection to Skydance New Media's currently untitled Captain America x Black Panther team-up game set during World War 2.

This is the second EA x Marvel project in development, as EA announced that Motive studio (the team behind Star Wars Squadrons and the recently released Dead Space remake) are developing an Iron Man game.

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Every developer picking up some form of Marvel project feels like the right way for people to get burnt out on superhero games the way they with the MCU films post-Avengers Endgame. Square Enix, Eidos Montreal, 2K, and Insomniac Games have all recently put out Marvel titles, and we still have two each from Insomniac and EA in the works alongside the Skydance project. Not to mention a lot of these games are covering similar ground, outside of Guardians of the Galaxy, all of the Marvel games that released in the last few years or are in development have either featured Black Panther, The Avengers, Wolverine, or Spider-Man (or most of them in Marvel's Avengers or Midnight Suns' cases).

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Obviously those characters are where the money is, but it would be nice to see some games based on Marvel heroes who haven't already had countless game appearances. Daredevil, Blade, Squirrel Girl, Spider-Gwen or The Punisher are all prime candidates for an action game.

At the very least, hearing that one of the big names from the Middle Earth games is heading up a Black Panther game makes perfect sense, so this is definitely one of the more exciting Marvel titles in development.

Scott McCrae