Marvel’s Wolverine will be Insomniac Games’ first non-Spidey superhero game, and it’ll have to be tweaked accordingly. One of the most interesting aspects of the upcoming game is just how distinct Wolverine, AKA Logan, AKA John Hewlett, is from the likes of Peter Parker and Miles Morales. These distinctions will be echoed in Wolverine‘s gameplay as much as its narrative and tone.
For example, we know that Marvel’s Wolverine will be significantly more violent and mean-spirited than the relatively all-ages Spider-Man outings by Insomniac. Wolverine is something of a vicious killer, after all, often walking a thin line between hero and anti-hero. His tortured past, world-weariness, and often enforcer-style role in the X-Men makes Wolverine a very different sort of lead, one less defined by web-swinging whimsy and more by unstoppable forward momentum. As such, it makes a lot of sense for Marvel’s Wolverine to ditch the open-world formula of the Marvel’s Spider-Man games, despite how central that formula has been to Insomniac’s superhero endeavors up til this point.
Like Logan Himself, Marvel’s Wolverine’s ‘Canadian Wilderness’ Says a Lot With a Little
After Marvel’s Wolverine’s State of Play trailer, the direction the story will take has become far clearer, even if Logan’s memory is anything but.
Open-World Works for Spider-Man, But It’s Time for a Break
The Insomniac Spider-Man games are great in most respects, although they are certainly far from perfect. I have qualms with Spider-Man‘s toothless narrative, painfully easy stealth systems, and auto-pilot combat, but the series’ broader open-world structure shouldn’t totally escape criticism either. Fundamentally, the Marvel’s Spider-Man games suffer from a lot of the same issues as other AAA open-world titles: its open-world can grind against story pacing and prioritize filler over high-quality, meaningful content. It can be hard to take a tense story seriously when you’re free to spend several in-game days leisurely swinging about, helping people and small businesses with comparatively trivial matters.
At the same time, Insomniac couldn’t have truly made Marvel’s Spider-Man without an open-world. There have been great linear Spider-Man games in the past, but a modern, system-selling PlayStation exclusive version of the Spider-Man fantasy had to be definitive. Since so much of the Spider-Man image is connected to not only the excitement of web-swinging, but also the character’s New York roots, the Marvel’s Spider-Man games never really had a chance of being anything other than open-world. Again, this can make the gameplay and storytelling feel less deliberate and not as well-paced, even if the open-world balances such shortcomings with other strengths. Marvel’s Wolverine, on the other hand, has no such compulsion toward the open-world format, which is a good thing.
Worth noting is that Insomniac Games isn’t an “open-world studio” in the same way Ubisoft and Rockstar are. The company’s other biggest IP, Ratchet and Clank, features more linear adventures, which might actually inform the structure of Wolverine, in a sense.
Marvel’s Wolverine Will Be Greatly Served by Ditching the Open-World
In an interview with IGN, Marvel’s Wolverine director Mike Daly described the game as having “comic book-style pacing,” and that this is rooted in a more linear, mission-based format: “I can say we did not set out to make an open world game or a sandbox game. What we really wanted was a high-octane, high intrigue, linear single-player adventure, and the missions reflect that in their structure.”
This works for Wolverine on multiple levels, which Daly and his team seem to be well aware of. Peter and Miles are young and optimistic despite their trauma, and serve their communities as the “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Men.” Of course, these characters will often leave New York, sometimes for other countries, other times for other planets, galaxies, and dimensions. But they generally stick to their NYC roots, and that’s where they tend to return. Wolverine has less of a consistent status quo.
While we don’t yet know how much Marvel’s Wolverine deviates from mainstream Marvel canon (the game exists in a world without the X-Men, for example), we may assume that Wolverine shares at least one major trait with his Earth-616 counterpart: extreme old age. Wolverine was born John Hewlett in the 1830s, his healing factor keeping him alive and reducing outward signs of aging. As such, he’s been all around the world, fought in several different wars, and participated in a number of historical events. He also usually suffers from memory loss and identity confusion. All of this is to say that Wolverine isn’t associated with one single location, making him a poor fit for a traditional open-world structure.
Marvel’s Wolverine director Mike Daly described the game as having “comic book-style pacing,” and that this is rooted in a more linear, mission-based format
It’s also important to remember Wolverine’s powers. He has a healing factor, preternaturally sharp senses, and iconic, adamantium claws, but that’s essentially it. He’s certainly stronger and more capable than the average human, but not to an extreme degree–Wolverine’s capability comes more from his tenacity and determination than raw power scaling. For Marvel’s Wolverine to remain true to the character, it can’t give him, say, the ability to leap 50 feet in a single bound like Spider-Man or Hulk. This severely limits his traversal options, which in turn makes him less mechanically interesting as an open-world avatar.
Finally, we have the Marvel’s Wolverine story, which is ostensibly about investigating kidnappings of various Mutant children. It’s already been established that this will be a globe-trotting adventure, which is fitting for this sort of Mutant-rescue plot. Marvel’s Mutants are fundamentally different from other Marvel groups, since they are connected by their strange biological divergences rather than geography. In other words, stories about recruiting or saving Mutants are well-served by having a lot of different locales, driving home the wide-spanning nature of mutations in this fictional world.
It will also be quite interesting to see Insomniac adopt a more linear, mission-based structure after so long. Even Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart has a sort of Mass Effect-like structure, where you can revisit various planets and explore wide-open areas, making it feel like a semi-open-world at times. Given the fierce and driven nature of the Wolverine character, and the high-stakes plot about Mutants from different corners of the globe, this pivot toward a more intentional, carefully crafted structure is not only fitting, but exciting from a player perspective. There’s been no shortage of open-world extravaganzas in recent years; Marvel’s Wolverine might actually stand out more by being a carefully controlled action-narrative experience.
- Released
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September 15, 2026
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases
- Publisher(s)
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Sony Interactive Entertainment
