Insomniac Games has seemingly struck gold with tits two Marvel's Spider-Man games. Both the original and Spider-Man: Miles Morales are critically and commercially successful, prompting the developer to take on another Marvel hero with the recently announced Marvel's Wolverine game. Insomniac has had as much success as one could hope for in the superhero genre thus far, but significant differences will have to be made to the current Spider-Man formula in order for Wolverine to create its own identity.
Obviously, Spider-Man (both Peter Parker and Miles Morales) is a much different hero than Wolverine. Character traits and motivations aside, the games are likely to be quite different in terms of gameplay. Dropping Wolverine into an open world based on Spider-Man's New York City likely wouldn't take advantage of the mutant's unique abilities. In fact, an open-world game might not suit Marvel's Wolverine at all.
Insomniac is likely in the early stages of development on Wolverine. It's not slated to be released until after Spider-Man 2, which isn't dropping until 2023. Wolverine and Spider-Man 2 are in the same universe, but copying Spider-Man's gameplay style wouldn't be doing Wolverine justice. Insomniac has a chance to add another hit to its superhero portfolio, but it will have to innovate on nearly every front to do so. Luckily Insomniac's development history has incredible variety with games including Resistance: Fall of Man and its sequels, the Ratchet & Clank games, and Sunset Overdrive.
Spider-Man is exceptionally agile and able to cover large distances quickly, which is part of what makes him so fun to play in an open-world game. His web-swinging makes traversal a fun part of the game, rather than strictly being a necessary component. Wolverine is superhuman in almost every way, but more limited spaces may have to be designed in order to make traversal interesting. Wolverine may be able to run, jump, and climb better than any common human, but he can't cover the length of Manhattan through the air in a matter of minutes.
The same line of thinking leads to an assumption that the combat in Wolverine will be much more deliberate than that of Spider-Man and Miles Morales. It would be disappointing to see another iteration of the Batman: Arkham series' combat since this is one major area in which Wolverine could differentiate itself. If Insomniac keeps Wolverine rather grounded in its interpretation, it could lead to a slower, tactically different combat system. An over-the-should approach like 2018's God of War, or something that focuses on exploiting enemy weaknesses like Ghost of Tsushima could provide inspiration to give Wolverine's claws satisfying utility. Insomniac Games has delivered the best Spider-Man games in years, but the studio will have to bring its penchant for gameplay variety to Marvel's Wolverine so it doesn't feel derivative.
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September 24, 2021 at 12:20AM
