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This week, EA cancelled its Black Panther project that was in development at Cliffhanger Games — a studio formed in 2023, specifically to develop this game. Cliffhanger has now been closed, too, a move EA says will help “sharpen our focus and put our creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities.” That likely means live-service games like Apex Legends, EA Sports FC, and Battlefield, with a few proven single-player games like the Star Wars Jedi sequel in the mix.

I got tired of superhero media a long time ago, but that EA statement still fills me with rage. Bluntly, if you're an executive and don't see Black Panther as a "significant growth opportunit[y]", you have no business being in video games. The first movie was a phenomenon. It grossed $1.35 billion at the box office, despite starring a largely unproven character. The second — which arrived at a time when superhero movies were beginning to decline and, worse, tragically lost its leading star, Chadwick Boseman — still managed to make $859.2 million. This character has become big business and not being able to see a way to make a Black Panther game profitable shows a major, indefensible lack of imagination.

Especially because Black Panther's powers feel like they were custom made for video games. I didn't know much about Black Panther before Ryan Coogler's movie came out in 2018, but while watching it, I was struck by how easily his skill set would adapt to a game. In the movies, his Vibranium suit can absorb kinetic energy from impacts, then channel that power back into attacks. It's so easy to imagine a video game allowing you to do the same thing, building up energy through combos, then unleashing it in an ultimate attack. Similarly, I can imagine a perk that allows you to turn the kinetic energy from hits you take into more powerful attacks.

In the movie, Black Panther is basically James Bond, with the full backing of the Wakandan state and his sister, Shuri, working as his Q, developing new tools and weapons for him to use. It’s so easy to imagine a game where T’Challa has to complete research missions so that Shuri can create a new gadget for him. The game could even be structured as a Metroidvania — a 3D one like Batman: Arkham Asylum — with new tools unlocking new areas across a vast interconnected setting. Maybe even Wakanda itself.

Black Panther has an extremely powerful sense of smell, allowing him to track targets over long distances. This would easily translate to the Detective Vision popularized by the Batman: Arkham games and incorporated into many others since, like The Witcher 3. He can turn invisible, which is perfect for Spider-Man or Arkham-style stealth-action. He even gains his powers by eating the heart-shaped herb, which is as close to a video game power-up as I've ever seen in other media.

Interestingly, one of the only big superhero games on the horizon is Marvel 1943: Rise of Hydra. The WW2-set action-adventure game co-stars Black Panther (Azzurri, T'Challa's grandfather) and Captain America. Did the knowledge that another game, also starring Black Panther, that would likely beat the solo game to market scare EA off? Maybe, but it seems to be a broader problem for the genre.

Generally, publishers seem to be moving away from the superhero business, unless they have a developer with a proven track record and/or a massively popular hero. With Spider-Man, Venom, and Wolverine, Insomniac has both, so it's easy to see why it seems to have been swallowed by the Marvel machine — at least according to the slate that leaked a few years ago. EA reportedly still has superhero projects in the works, but most superhero games made since COVID haven’t performed. Marvel’s Avengers, Midnight Suns, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League were all commercial disappointments, and a few hit Spider-Man games don’t move the needle for the genre’s overall viability.

It's a shame because this feels like the perfect medium for Black Panther. He may have been introduced in comics, and become a household name thanks to movies, but Black Panther makes most sense as the star of an action-packed video game. It's a shame we won't get one anytime soon.