Finally, Wolverine

This past Wednesday, at the latest Playstation State of Play event, the first gameplay trailer for Insomniac Games’ Wolverine title was shown. This comes nearly 4 whole years after its initial reveal teaser. With Hollow: Knight Silksong finally coming out this year, I think its time we talk about long video game dev cycles, the sin of revealing a game too early, and the future of superhero video games.

I’m a pretty big fan of Insomniac’s previous Spider-Man games. The first outing remains the best, but their smaller Miles Morales title brought a lot of gameplay innovations, and while Spider-Man 2 was a disappointment in many regards, its still one of my favorite games ever. Much of that is because of Insomniac’s knack for putting together great plots and systems, but thanks to behind the scenes issues, it fails to live up to its potential.

Spider-Man 2‘s problems are important to discuss because let’s be honest: the game wasn’t finished upon release, and still isn’t. My launch copy still crashes on occasion and experiences noticeable bugs. While the first game enjoyed post-launch DLC, the sequel was abandoned. Beyond this, Insomniac was the victim of a major data hack in 2023 that leaked no only exposed personal data of employees, but design information regarding Wolverine that became public.

Insomniac’s troubles internal and external partly explain the 4 year wait. Revealing Wolverine before Spider-Man 2 was even out, in retrospect, was a bad move, but now that we’re beyond it, does it even matter, or has it left a shadow over the whole game?

Needless to say, I’m a bit worried about Wolverine, but not because of anything in the trailer. What we’re shown was surprisingly restrained. We see Logan in typical places (Madripoor, Canadian tundra), performing typical activities (shredding people with his claws) in typical attire (flannel + cowboy hat, classic blue + yellow, Insomniac’s version). He’s fighting cyborg mercenaries, villains like Omega Red and Mystique, and we even see a Sentinel. It seems to be a solid, if not groundbreaking, superhero action game.

I’m not going to discount the time it takes to make a game, or what Insomniac has gone through since Wolverine’s reveal and this trailer, but with other superhero titles dropping like flies, we have to wonder what was gained by revealing it so early. Rocksteady’s Wonder Woman game as well as Cliffhanger’s Black Panther have all been quietly put down before they even had trailers. I fear for the future of the single-player, narrative superhero game. In 10 years, we’ll have 30 more seasons of Marvel Rivals and maybe Insomniac’s Spider-Gwen, and that’s NOT a future I want to live in. I want Insomniac to make the best Wolverine game they can, but I’d also love for someone else to get the chance.