Very little is known about Insomniac’s Wolverine game, but their work on the recent Marvel’s Spider-Man games has inspired plenty of confidence. There have been leaks that suggest a Mutant-filled action title with a playable Jean Grey, but a lot can change from development to the final product.
Whatever happens with this Wolverine game, many agree that it needs to take some cues from the X-Men Origins: Wolverine game. Although the movie wasn’t any good, this tie-in video game was a great God of War-like adventure with plenty of gore.
Using violence as a selling point might sound immature, but this was the first time we’d seen Wolverine used to his full gory potential. Fans of the character could only see his violent side in the comics, with most cartoons and video games minimizing what the canucklehead could do. It was gratifying seeing this character cut heads off and split people in two, especially since the film was nowhere near as violent.
Because the Insomniac Marvel games use the comics as a basis for these adventures, we feel that Logan’s violent side needs to be a major selling point. It’s actually somewhat laughable that the character has been marketed to children, considering his backstory and having knives in his knuckles, so another M-rated adventure for the character is needed. Future X-Men games can tone down his violence, but he needs to get his hands bloody when going solo.
It does look like Insomniac will give us an M-rated Wolverine adventure when their game comes out, but they will likely go for gory realism. Although that’s admirable, we’d like it if they went over-the-top cartoony with the blood in this upcoming Marvel project. More of these superhero games are trying to be cinematic and story-centric, but Wolverine needs a ridiculous amount of violence in his adventure.
Granted, you can tell a mature story with the character and keep all of that violence, albeit, in a subdued level. The amazing Logan movie proved that an R-18 version of this character can still have plenty of heart in it. We expect Insomniac Games to do the same as they keep working on this superhero title.
Development has likely progressed to a point where what they’ve made is going to be the final product, but we hope this is more of a character-action game than another cinematic title. A recent push for character-action games has shown that there is room for these combat-centric titles in the current gaming landscape. With rumors of Sony remastering the older God of War titles, giving the Wolverine games a similar treatment would be amazing.
Wolverine is going to be a good-to-great game, Insomniac’s impressive catalog of games all but concerns that. Let’s just hope that these devs have played X-Men Origins: Wolverine for research, because that’s the best game to feature this iconic Marvel superhero.