The recent PlayStation Showcase has become one of the biggest gaming events of the year. In the space of an hour, fans were treated with surprise reveals and reaffirming updates on games from all over the industry, and one such reveal was one that few saw coming. Insomniac Games and Marvel announced Marvel's Wolverine with a short cinematic trailer, and although it didn't show the hero's face, his iconic adamantium claws were enough to send fans into a frenzy.
The announcement of Marvel's Wolverine was a big enough surprise on its own, but the fact that it is also being developed by Insomniac adds to the game's hype. Insomniac is still riding high from Marvel's Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, so adding Wolverine to the mix only enhances an already impressive resume. Wolverine hasn't been featured in his own major game in a very long time, and superhero games have changed dramatically since then. If Wolverine has any hope of being brought into the modern age of superhero games, there are few developers better suited to do so than Insomniac Games.
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Wolverine's Lackluster Gaming History
As popular as Wolverine may be to comic fans, his major gaming appearances often don't reflect that reputation. While there have been some X-Men arcade games that feature the character, his solo appearances are few and far between. Of the few solo Wolverine games in existence, most of them fall prey to the unfortunate history of licensed superhero movie tie-ins.
X2: Wolverine's Revenge is one solo game that got decent reviews when it was released almost twenty years ago, but there are few that fondly remember it. The one Wolverine game that has managed to impress some gamers is X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The one standout feature was the title's combat, but it still suffered as a tie-in to the widely panned movie that it's based on. These two games are a relic of a different time, with mostly bland narratives and often questionable gameplay mechanics. Wolverine hasn't really been considered for his own solo game since, but now there's never been a better time for that thinking to change.
Insomniac Understands What Makes A Good Superhero Game
Insomniac Games made an excellent impression with comic fans when it released Marvel's Spider-Man in 2018. The game's narrative and combat mechanics combined to make a near-perfect experience that captured everything great about Spider-Man. Insomniac showed that it not only understood Spider-Man as a character, but it understood what makes a good superhero game today. The Batman: Arkham series certainly set the standard years before, but Insomniac evolved the formula in a way that few expected.
With Marvel's Wolverine, Insomniac is more than likely to put just as much, if not more effort into seamlessly bringing Wolverine into the modern age of superhero games. Insomniac's charming and emotional writing of Spider-Man should translate almost perfectly to Wolverine's gruff attitude and history of tragedy. And from a gameplay perspective, Insomniac nailed the fluidity and power of Spider-Man, so there's reason to believe that it should be able to replicate the brutality of Wolverine's claws.
Aside from the possibility of Marvel's Wolverine creating a gaming MCU, the fact that Insomniac is helming the game is a great sign for fans of the character. For such an iconic hero, Wolverine has been stuck in the past of superhero games, and Insomniac has been leading the charge of quality superhero games for the past few years now. The reveal of Marvel's Wolverine may have been brief, but fans should be reassured that there likely isn't a better developer for the character to make a gaming comeback.
Marvel's Wolverine is currently in development for the PS5.
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