EA’s newest football game doesn’t quite perform up to standards and suddenly the publisher goes into meltdown. After recently culling Codemasters and ditching the WRC license, EA has now shuttered Cliffhangar Games, thereby also cancelling its Black Panther game.
IGN broke the standard after somehow managing to acquire an internal email sent by EA Entertainment president Laura Miele. According to Miele, this and the recent layoffs are to “”sharpen our focus and put our creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities.”
Part of this new “creative energy” is to shut down Cliffhanger Games. The studio was founded in 2023 and based in Seattle, and was working on a Black Panther game in collaboration with Marvel. Very little of the game has been shown since its announcement back in 2023, though.
“These decisions are hard,” Miele wrote in the internal Email. “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.”
IGN reached out to EA for comment and confirmation of how many jobs will be lost, but EA apparently declined to comment. They also referred IGN back to the Emil Miele sent, confirming the news.
The weird thing is that EA’s employee count has actually been rising despite the many layoffs reported. GameFile reported on the situation, revealing that as of March this year EA employees 800 people more than it did in March of 2024.
Miele goes on to say that EA is planning on focusing on just a few of its franchises, which IGN lists as being Battlefield, The Sims, Skate and Apex Legends. EA’s other Marvel-related game, Iron Man, remains untouched. The original deal with Marvel also calls for a third, unannounced title. Respawn will also keep going on the next Star Wars: Jedi game (although its reported that a Titanfall game they were working on was canned recently) while Bioware continues to develop the next Mass Effect.
IGN states that the EA Sports division is untouched.