US publishing giant Electronic Arts has closed down Cliffhanger Games and cancelled the Black Panther project that studio was working on. 

IGN reports that EA Entertainment president Laura Miele (pictured) emailed staff to let them know that this decision had been made to "sharpen our focus and put our creative energy behind the most significant growth opportunities."

As well as shutting down Cliffhanger, staff are being laid off within EA's mobile and central teams though no figure has been put as to how many employees are affected by this. LinkedIn shows that around 80 people work at Cliffhanger. 

Miele's email suggests that EA is focusing on its core IP, such as Battlefield, Apex Legends and, er, Skate. It also appears that Motive's upcoming Iron Man project and the new Mass Effect game from BioWare are safe from harm, for now at least. 

"These decisions are hard," Miele wrote in her email to staff. 

"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."

All of this follows EA laying off around 300 staff from Respawn Entertainment and other departments. 

Cliffhanger was announced in July 2023 with former Monolith VP and studio head Kevin Stephens at the helm.