Cliffhanger Games Associate Narrative Designer and Marvel’s Black Panther developer Dani Lalonders has received some backlash for some past statements she made. She admitted that she avoided hiring white individuals to work on her indie title ValiDate. “ValiDate is a game with all people of color. We have no white people on our team” says Lalonders. “I did that so I can create a safe environment and I know that the best way for an environment to be safe is to be surrounded by people who are just like me. I’m not saying white people are creating unsafe environments, I’m saying sometimes it’s hard to work with white people because sometimes they think something is okay, but it’s actually a microaggression. And no one wants to deal with that while you’re making a game that they love.”Lalonders made these statements in a dev talk back in 2021 at the Game Devs of Color Expo, a clip of which has now resurfaced and is going viral. ValiDate is “a romantic visual novel about 13 adults in Jersey City navigating new relationships and the harsh realities that come alongside them.” Several comments have been made about the clip and about how her statements displayed blatant racism against another race for actively excluding them from an opportunity. The developer has since made her social accounts private following the backlash.
Not much is known about the upcoming Black Panther game aside from it being a single player game that is currently in early development. It is quite unfortunate that EA has yet to make any comments or take action against employees like these who are seemingly openly racist. Gaming Instincts will not be covering Black Panther to avoid showing support to such individuals.
New Studio lead and former studio head of Monolith Productions Kevin Stephens, recently commented on the upcoming game saying:
“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. We’re still early in development with a long road ahead, but we know the foundation to any great story is to build an experienced team with diverse voices and perspectives and that’s what we want to build, especially with a superhero as important as Black Panther.”
“As we begin this remarkable journey, we are excited to be working with 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.”
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A Nintendo Switch trailer was also released.
According to SteamDB.
An announcement trailer was also released.