The latest Marvel’s Wolverine gameplay trailer has made one thing very clear. This isn’t the family-friendly side of Marvel we’ve seen in Spider-Man. This is Logan in all his violent, berserker, claw-slashing glory, and Insomniac isn’t holding back.
The trailer kicks off with a battered Wolverine lifting a human-looking cyborg and impaling it on his claws. Later, he casually uses those claws like cutlery, driving them straight through another cyborg’s face, from the jaw right out the top of the skull. Blood sprays, bones crunch, and it’s as raw as you’d imagine.
That brutality is exactly what Insomniac Games senior community manager Aaron Jason Espinoza was talking about in a new PlayStation Blog post when he described the game as sometimes being “darker and more brutal than you might expect from Insomniac.”
But while it’s gorier than fans might be used to from the studio, Espinoza also reassured players that it will feel like a true Insomniac title, saying it features the same “fast, fluid, and ferocious combat; exhilarating, action-packed set pieces; robust accessibility features; and a gripping story that taps into the core tenets of one of the most compelling comic book characters of all-time.”
Even within the studio, there were debates about how far to push Logan’s signature violence. Jess Reiner-Reed, the game’s project director, admitted in a behind-the-scenes feature that one particular scene made them pause.
“There’s a part in the trailer where Logan jumps down, and then he does the claws up through the face,” Reiner-Reed explained. “That one I thought, maybe was gonna be taking it too far, but I am so glad that we have it. It looks fantastic.”
Wolverine has always been one of Marvel’s most violent anti-heroes, and his claws demand that kind of savagery. To hold back would be to miss the point. Creative director Marcus Smith put it bluntly when asked if the game would match the brutality fans know from the comics.
“The question that comes up a lot to us at Insomniac Games is, ‘are you going to make a Wolverine game that is as violent, as visceral, as the character in the comics?’” Smith said before unleashing a montage of gruesome kill shots. The answer? A clear and bloody yes.
From what we’ve seen so far, Marvel’s Wolverine looks like it’s going to be one of the most unapologetically brutal superhero games ever made. Insomniac seems ready to let Logan off the leash, and fans wouldn’t want it any other way.
