A job listing for a software engineer role lists an “innovative open story system” as one of the features in Marvel’s Black Panther.
The newly-formed Cliffhanger Games is currently hiring staff for its upcoming Marvel’s Black Panther project.
Advertising on LinkedIn (as spotted by Exputer), Cliffhanger is currently looking for a pair of software engineers, and its job description reveals a few tantalising details about its superhero game-in-progress.
Black Panther will, going by these postings, be an open-world action-RPG with a “player-driven narrative”, with the team currently working on a “highly innovative Open Story system.”
Cliffhanger Games is led by Kevin Stephens, formerly of Monolith Productions, the studio behind Middle-earth: Shadows of Mordor. It’s just possible, then, that Black Panther’s “innovative Open Story system” will be a new spin on Shadows of Mordor’s innovative (and patented) Nemesis system.
“We are making room for a talented Software Engineer with a passion for innovative and engaging experiences to help us realize our vision of player-driven narrative in a AAA Action RPG,” the listing reads. “This engineer’s primary area of ownership will be within our highly innovative Open Story system. This will include furthering our development of Dialog and Conversation systems, as well as facilitating other potential aspects of our Presentation team needs such as Camera systems and Facial Animation pipeline and workflow.”
A listing for Senior Software Engineer additionally tells us that Black Panther will use Unreal Engine 5 (“This engineer’s primary role will be to work closely with our art and design teams to create, extend and support our UE5 based content creation pipelines”).
News of Marvel’s Black Panther first emerged on 20 July, as EA announced that the game would be the latest in a series of superhero titles in the works at various studios working for the publisher. It was announced last year that Montreal’s Motive Studio is working on a single-player Iron Man game, all as part of a “long term deal” that will see EA and Marvel collaborate on “at least three” superhero games.
