As summer quickly approaches and no official news has been shared about Marvel’s Wolverine since its announcement teaser, it’s becoming more likely by the day that Insomniac’s first non-Spider-Man game will land in the tail-end of 2025, if not sometime in 2026. That would be completely fine under any circumstances, but, sadly, Insomniac has also been marred by a seemingly unending series of malicious leaks. It’s because of these leaks that many potential details have been revealed long before Insomniac intended for them to.
Leaks, if legitimate, do unfortunately reveal a playable character other than Wolverine whose gameplay would be far more substantial and elaborate than, say, Mary Jane Watson’s in either Marvel’s Spider-Man or Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
It’s possible that Marvel’s Wolverine’s final product could contradict leaks wholly, and until anything is confirmed by Insomniac it will be up in the air. That said, in the event that Marvel’s Wolverine does turn out to have more playable characters, it can’t lose sight of its titular protagonist as the focus should be almost fully on Wolverine if it is indeed named after him.
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Insomniac Won’t Yet Commit to Wolverine PS5 Release Date
There are still many unanswered questions about Marvel’s Wolverine, and developer Insomniac isn’t ready to give an official release date yet.
Marvel’s Spider-Man’s Multiple Playable Characters Has Been Good for Storytelling, But Not for Gameplay
Knowing how long AAA video game development can take, it wouldn’t be at all surprising if developers packed their games with as much worldbuilding and novel gameplay features as necessary so that a framework is established for whatever that studio decides to do afterward. Insomniac’s work, for example, unmistakably bleeds into everything that follows it—the bones of Sunset Overdrive’s traversal given tissue to become Marvel’s Spider-Man, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart’s instant-load portals becoming Marvel Spider-Man 2’s Doctor Strange portals, and so on.
Therefore, Insomniac potentially layering Marvel’s Wolverine with playable characters in order to make its possible transition to an ensemble X-Men game seamless would be logical. Rift Apart has Rivet, Marvel’s Spider-Man has Mary Jane Watson and Miles Morales, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has MJ, Hailey Cooper, and Venom, ensuring that a second or third playable character in Marvel’s Wolverine would be more than likely regardless of leaks.
However, it’s still debatable that MJ’s gameplay adds anything of substance to the series’ gameplay when the amazing power fantasy lies with being a spider-person. Making MJ playable has reinforced her importance in the story, and yet without those sequences the Marvel Spider-Man titles would still be exceptional Spider-Man games. Conversely, a Wolverine game with one or more other playable X-Men may muddy that water and tug attention away from the adamantium-laced brute.
A ‘Marvel’s Wolverine’ Game Shouldn’t Eclipse Its Titular Mutant with Other X-Men
Having multiple playable characters, much less playable mutants who may reappear down the road in an X-Men game, would be fortuitous and allow Insomniac to lead into an ensemble game much more fluidly. It’d make sense to introduce as many characters as possible in Marvel’s Wolverine if they’d be reprised in a sequel, especially with Insomniac’s Marvel universe having an originality continuity that’ll need to be explored fully.
It’ll be exciting to see what Wolverine’s relationships are like with other X-Men characters, for instance, though a Marvel’s Wolverine game leaning too heavily on X-Men in general could make it difficult for him not to blend into the crowd.
If Gambit, Storm, Cyclops, Rogue, or Jean Grey were to appear and be playable, there’s a decent chance that their gameplay may seem far more interesting than Wolverine’s inevitable hack-n’-slash, even if they’re only playable in short sequences. X-Men cameos will easily be the most popular talking point of Marvel’s Wolverine and that’d ultimately be disappointing as, not unlike how Spider-Man has had New York City all to himself in Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man series, Wolverine deserves to have a game to himself whether or not an X-Men game is intended to follow it.
- Franchise
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Marvel
- Released
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October 1, 2024