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The formula for the perfect Wolverine game is as hard to crack as adamantium. Those with Logan as the main character have ranged from "okay, not bad" to "please make it stop". He's been in some great games, but always as a supporting character. Take the ol' canucklehead out of the fantastic Marvel's Midnight Suns, for example, and the impact on story and gameplay would be negligible. We've got every reason to believe, however, that Insomniac will finally give him the game he deserves with Marvel's Wolverine.
"Been fightin' longer than I can remember," he growls resignedly at the beginning of the recent gameplay trailer. There's then plenty of ultraviolence to demonstrate this (he literally rips a guy in half), and it's this level of character-appropriate gore that has caught the attention of, and sparked hope in, many fans. There's plenty more to read into however, not least the words and tone of Logan's voiceover that sits in stark contrast to the energy and rage of what's happening on screen ("Death's always waitin'. Just not for me").
He sounds tired. This, too, is true to the character. Not only is Wolverine practically unkillable, he ages incredibly slowly, and as a result has seen friends and lovers lost to time as he is forced to continue, physically unchanged. This makes me wonder whether the story might take place over years rather than weeks or months. It's something of a globetrotting adventure – Madripoor, Canada, and Japan have been confirmed – and the Wolverine at the beginning of the trailer seems animalistic in a way that the yellow-suit-wearing, motorbike-riding version we see later does not.
Claw blimey
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It's already been confirmed that Marvel's Wolverine takes place in the same universe as Insomniac's Spider-Man games, so we now officially have a Marvel Gaming Universe (MGU, anyone?). I think they're playing the long game here – I don't expect Spider-Man to turn up halfway through Logan's adventure and join him through to the end – but I am kind of expecting Peter Parker to make a post credit cameo. Without spoiling too much for those unaware, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 ends in a way that, if you squint and use a little imagination, could feasibly lead to Peter leaving New York and bumping into Logan somewhere.
Spider-Man and Wolverine are wildly different characters with very different temperaments, but a future game featuring them both would work because of, rather than despite, this. After all, they've worked together plenty of times in the comics world. The MGU plans extend far beyond these two however, as can be seen if you take another look at the trailer. It's revealed that Omega Red and Mystique will feature, and I'll bet you a spandex costume of your choice that there will be more villains – and perhaps heroes – to come. The confirmation of Tokyo as a location intrigues me. Could we see Lady Deathstrike? Logan's son Daken, even?
Mystique only makes a brief appearance in the trailer, but the way that she is framed and animated in the few seconds of a fight scene we see leads me to believe that she'll be a playable character. The fact that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 features playable characters beyond Peter and Miles only strengthens my belief, and in fact, I'll go so far as to say that we'll even get to step into the blood-soaked shoes of Omega Red, even if only briefly. Insomniac let us have a little go living out our Venom fantasies, after all.
Hulk/Logan
Wolverine will need another level of creativity given that he can't die, but I trust this team to do it.
Part of what Marvel's Wolverine will set out to do, I think, is solidify the idea of an MGU and continue to normalize the idea of multiple playable characters. I expect this to pay off big time in the future, with an Insomniac X-Men, Avengers, or other big league team-up game. The very presence of a sentinel at the end of the trailer serves as a reminder that the MGU is populated by an untold number of mutants, and opens the door to an enormous number of related characters.
The other thing the game will want to do, of course, is tell a great Wolverine story while making him feel authentic. This poses a huge, vital question that neither the reveal trailer nor the gameplay trailer answers: how? His skeleton is coated with an unbreakable metal, he rapidly heals any wound, and his claws can tear through almost anything. The worst mistake a superhero game can make is to sacrifice the power fantasy in the name of gameplay mechanics utterly unsuited to it (looking at you, Marvel's Avengers and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League).
Balancing the powerful nature of a character with the need for some level of challenge is an incredibly difficult task, but I feel confident saying Insomniac is a safe pair of hands here. Their Spider-Man games demonstrated that they know and understand the characters they've been trusted with, and can find a way to make them a joy to play as without hollowing out their abilities.
Wolverine will need another level of creativity given that he can't die, but I trust this team to do it. An additional technique, of course, is to feature gameplay sections where you take control of a character that doesn't enjoy the advantages of the main protagonist. Insomniac landed on a winning formula with Marvel's Spider-Man 2; I see no reason for them to drop it entirely for their next game, and I doubt they do, either.
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