Marvel and EA working on Black Panther game that builds on Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, says report

A Black Panther video game is reportedly in the works from Marvel and EA with the new project set to build off the latter's success with Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order. 

This comes from Giant Bomb member and former VentureBeat writer Jeff Grubb (via YouTube) who believes that Black Panther is being developed by a new studio in Seattle that sports talent from Monolith Productions, including its former vice president Kevin Stephens, with EA acting as publisher. Currently titled "Project Rainer," the title is set to be a single-player open-world game based in Wakanda. 

The game's narrative supposedly begins with the player taking on the mantle of Black Panther in the wake of another Black Panther's death. This is expected to be a pre-made character like Shuri or T'Challa, as opposed to a character creator with Grubb noting the obvious controversy of being able to make Black Panther white. It was noted as being very early in development. 

Whether this would be for next-gen consoles is yet to be seen, though you would think PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X / S and PC would be the priority. T3 has reached out to EA for comment.

"It does seem like right now, again, very early in development but they're looking at making this a big open-world Black Panther game," Grubb explained. He added that: "There are more Marvel games in the works". 

Furthermore, it was stated that the studio is looking to Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order from Respawn as an example of the type of quality to strive for. The 2019 Star Wars action-adventure game in itself was a single-player experience from EA that sold over 10 million copies. A sequel is now in development. 

Grubb said: "This is the continued transition at EA from being like 'hey, everything needs to be a live service' to be like 'oh wait, [Star Wars] Jedi: Fallen Order did very well. What if we could replicate that in other places?'. And that is exactly what they're going for with this Black Panther." 

Marvel has been expanding heavily into the games sector over the last few years – most notably with Spider-Man and Miles Morales from Sony and the wonderfully underrated Guardians of the Galaxy from Square Enix. Black Panther appeared as a playable character in the DLC for Marvel's Avengers, which received a mixed critical reception – hey I enjoyed the story. That said, it would be great for the king of Wakanda to finally get his own dedicated game, especially if a single-player experience is the focus as the report mentions. 

This news came to light following Marvel's unveiling of the first Black Panther: Wakanda Forever trailer at San Diego Comic-Con 2022, which promises an emotional sendoff for Chadwick Boseman.