EA shut down studio they opened less than two years ago, cancel Black Panther game

To "put our originative vigor down the astir important maturation opportunities," says president

Image credit: Square Enix

In 2023 EA opened a caller workplace named Cliffhanger Games, led by erstwhile Monolith caput Kevin Stephens, and announced a caller third-person, singleplayer crippled starring Marvel's Black Panther. They've present cancelled that crippled and unopen down that studio, IGN report.

According to EA Entertainment president Laura Miele, via an email sent to employees, this has been done to "sharpen our absorption and enactment our originative vigor down the astir important maturation opportunities."

Additionally, some EA's mobile and cardinal teams volition spot an unconfirmed fig of layoffs - understood by IGN to beryllium little than the 300 workers laid disconnected successful April. From the report:

"These decisions are hard," Miele wrote. "They impact radical we’ve worked with, learned from, and shared existent moments with. We’re doing everything we tin to enactment them — including uncovering opportunities wrong EA, wherever we’ve had occurrence helping radical onshore successful caller roles.

EA are reportedly making efforts to find affected workers different roles wrong the company, via an interior placement programs. "Our concern with Marvel remains beardown and our multi-title, semipermanent collaboration continues," Miele told IGN, portion besides saying successful the archetypal email that EA would beryllium focusing connected Battlefield, The Sims, Skate, and Apex Legends going forward.

EA employees were near "upset and confused" astatine a instrumentality to bureau mandate earlier this month. In-person work, said CEO Andrew Wilson successful an email to employees, leads to "a kinetic vigor that fuels creativity, innovation, and connection, often resulting successful unexpected breakthroughs that pb to unthinkable experiences for our players". Last year, EA laid disconnected 5% of their workforce, (around 670). Despite these caller layoffs, the institution present employs 800 much radical than this clip past year, study Game File (paywalled). IGN enactment this is apt owed to EA expanding the size of halfway teams, which scans with Miele's stated absorption connected a fewer prime crippled series.

Between them, Andrew Wilson and Laura Miele took location astir $40 cardinal successful 2024.

Here's a bully video connected the EA-published Spore I watched immoderate of past night. When Spore was released, it shipped with immoderate undisclosed dodgy DRM bundle named Securom that constricted each transcript to 3 instrumentality installs via a code. If you happened to upgrade your hardware during this time, there's a accidental you would person been locked retired of playing the crippled you bought. Partly arsenic a result, Spore remains 1 of the astir pirated games of each time, though whether you should pirate each merchandise Andrew Wilson has a manus successful from present until the extremity of clip is the benignant of question you'll person to reply yourself.