2023 marks the 57th anniversary of Black Panther's comic book debut, and Marvel Games has today announced plans for a video game revolving around T'Challa.
The EA-owned Cliffhanger Games, a new triple-A development studio based in Seattle, is officially working on an original, third-person, single-player Black Panther game, and a brief announcement teaser was released earlier today to coincide with the news.
It's clearly very, very early days for the project, but the plan is for the company to "build an expansive and reactive world that empowers players to experience what it is like to take on the mantle of Wakanda's protector, the Black Panther." Needless to say, the prospect of exploring Wakanda as T'Challa is incredibly exciting, especially if it's going to feature an open-world map similar to Far Cry, for example.
Cliffhanger is led by Kevin Stephens, while the team working on Black Panther is made up of those who have previously contributed to franchises such as Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, Halo Infinite, God of War, and Call of Duty.
"We’re dedicated to delivering fans a definitive and authentic Black Panther experience, giving them more agency and control over their narrative than they have ever experienced in a story-driven video game," Stephens says. "Wakanda is a rich Super Hero sandbox, and our mission is to develop an epic world for players who love Black Panther and want to explore the world of Wakanda as much as we do."
He'd add that the plan is for Cliffhanger and Marvel Games "to ensure that we craft every aspect of Wakanda, its technology, its heroes, and our own original story with the attention to detail and authenticity that the world of Black Panther deserves."
"It’s an incredibly rare opportunity to build a new team around the values of diversity, collaboration, and empowerment," he continues. "We want our game to enable players to feel what it’s like to be worthy of the Black Panther mantle in unique, story-driven ways, and we want Cliffhanger Games to empower everyone on our team as we collaborate to bring this amazing world to life."
This sounds incredible, and we can only hope this team is able to do T'Challa justice. It's probably going to be a good couple of years before we even get a first look at the game and no doubt a couple more beyond that before we actually get to play it.
As always, stay tuned for updates on Black Panther as we have them.