We finally got our first real deep dive into Marvel’s Wolverine and how it will play during yesterday’s State of Play presentation. Yes, there’s a lot of Logan ripping through enemy meatbags with his claws. The combos are bloody and brutal. But what’s the adamantium-boned mutant up to beyond killing people, and what exactly is unique about Insomniac Games’ take on the comic book character this time around? Here’s everything we learned from the PlayStation 5 exclusive’s first extended gameplay trailer and some recent interviews with its lead creatives.
Wolverine is not an open-world game or a sandbox game
The new gameplay footage shows the mutant working his way through pretty bespoke-looking levels and action setpieces. According to the developers, Wolverine is a globetrotting adventure with lots of different types of areas to explore and different ways to approach encounters, but it’s not completely open-ended. “I can say we did not set out to make an open-world game or a sandbox game,” game director Mike Daly told IGN. “What we really wanted was high-octane, high-intrigue, linear single-player adventure, and the missions reflect that in their structure.”
There’s no X-Men
“The important thing, I guess, is the X-Men don’t exist in our game,” creative director Marcus Smith told Eurogamer. “We wanted to focus on a Wolverine storyline and really build it from that character and build a world that is in a state where mutants aren’t well-known,” he added. “They are known; they’re falling victim to people who do know about them and want to destroy them.”
Insomniac Games is telling an original story
Marvel’s Wolverine takes place in a time when mutants are being rounded up by a cybernetic militia called Reavers. They work for Bolivar Trask, a billionaire industrialist who believes humans are superior to mutants. In the Marvel comics, he’s known for having created the Sentinels to try to wipe out mutant life. Instead of the traditional X-Men, founded by Charles Xavier, here we have Team X, a “last-stand mutant task force” trying to protect mutants.
Logan renews his membership after having previously gone his separate way. The extended gameplay footage shows him helping out Leech, a member of the Morlocks. That group’s leader, Callisto, was revealed to be played by the prolific Debra Wilson, with Omega Red and others making cameos in the new footage as well.
Jean Grey and Mystique are in the game
And Wolverine can team up with them during fights, including for critical strikes, which are special types of takedown moves that can be performed when enemies are weaker. There will also be team-up abilities unique to other situations, like the game’s stealth sections. (Hopefully, those are better than some of the ones in Spider-Man 2).
Sabretooth is there, too, but he’s more of a frenemy
While Grey and other Team X teammates assist Logan, things will be more competitive with his long-time rival. “Jean might use her telekinesis to open up an enemy to help you take them down [but] when you’re fighting with Sabretooth, it’s more like you thought you got the kill and he snatches it right out of your hands just to deny you the pleasure,” Daly told Eurogamer.
Wolverine is the only playable character in Marvel’s Wolverine
“This game is all about Wolverine and you play Wolverine the whole way through,” Daly told IGN. “We wanted to keep the focus on him throughout the whole story.”
Logan has special abilities called Techniques
These attacks are more powerful and can be used in-between regular quick attack combos. Per a PlayStation blog post, one is called Tornado Spin and the other is called Bull Rush.
He also has a Rage meter
It builds up throughout fights every time he attacks, parries, or kills an enemy and will decay over time. The meter can be used for things like his healing factor to increase his health and survivability. If it’s powered up all the way, Wolverine can unleash a Rage Tier 3 ability which is a “stylized monochromatic explosion of savagery inspired by Marvel Comics’ Black, White, & Blood series.” Spending rage to do extra damage or saving it for healing will be part of the trade-off in combat.
Wolverine’s mutant power is healing but he can still die in this game
“In our case, our Logan can die,” Daly told Eurogamer. “If his heart stops because he runs out of health, his healing factor turns off and he will die. But if he’s got enough rage, the adrenaline in his system can reboot his heart and give him a surge of healing to bring him back into the game; so that was that ‘last stand’ moment you saw in the gameplay trailer, where we come in close and focus on the process going through Logan’s body to convert this adrenaline into health. And it’s followed by this vulnerability period of ‘Your rage is gone now; if you go down again, that’s it.’”
And his body can get really gnarly-looking as he takes a beating
“You can sort of see it heal in real time as he does his Healing Surges or his Last Stand, or he’ll heal rapidly once you complete a combat and he can focus all his energy on regeneration,” Daly told IGN. “And I can say a lot of work was put into building Logan’s body in a way that can take lots of different types of damage all over and at a level of fidelity that holds up to our close, visceral camera.”
Wolverine has a ton of accessibility options and you can turn all the blood off
The studio’s website goes through all of the game’s settings options in detail. In addition to things like difficulty options, visual assists, and controller remapping, there are also settings for fine-tuning all the violence:
- (NEW) Violence Preset: Some, Full – Presets for a mix of different Dynamic Blood, Dismemberment, and Healing options
- (NEW) Dynamic Blood – Toggles the visibility of blood from impacts during gameplay and cinematics
- (NEW) Dismemberment – Toggles visibility of dismemberment in gameplay (no dismemberment) and cinematics (blurred)
- (NEW) Visceral Healing – Toggles the level of physical damage displayed on Logan’s body in gameplay and cinematics
Will Spider-Man be in Wolverine?
Sort of. Smith told Eurogamer that its other Marvel characters do exist in the same universe as Logan, but won’t make any direct appearances. “There will be some Easter-eggy sort of overlap, but there is no crossover between Spider-Man and Wolverine,” he said.
