It took Hollywood decades to learn the truth about superheroes: the origin stories are usually the most boring part. Insomniac Games was clued into that fact from the start with the Marvel's Spider-Man games, which deliberately avoided showing us Peter Parker's fateful meeting with a radioactive Spider. It seems they're taking a similar approach with Marvel's Wolverine.
"During our story, Logan already has adamantium infused to his bones," creative director Marcus Smith explains at a preview event for Marvel's Wolverine. "He does not remember how that happened, why it happened, and we are not really covering it because we're not doing an origin story."
During my hands-on time with Marvel's Wolverine, I saw the very start of the game, which does open with a brief flashback. There, we see Logan in the woods, seemingly feral, when he meets Nathaniel Essex – a character whose name will ring a calamitous bell for X-Men fans. The scene is just a few moments, and we quickly fast-forward apparent years to the actual action.
There's a sense of history to the characters, as they regularly reference past events and conflicts, but it's all flavor that makes the world seem bigger. If you have history with Wolverine in the comics or other media, you'll have a pretty clear picture of what these events look like – if not, it'll just be there to make the characters seem richer.
It's the exact same approach we saw Insomniac take in Marvel's Spider-Man, which references Spidey's origins and history in ways that make sense and add to the story, but never explicitly spells out that story. Perhaps the most important part is that it lets players just start being a superhero from the second they load up the game – whether we're talking about Peter Parker or James Logan Howlett, there's no need to make people wait for the fun part.
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