Why Marvel’s Wolverine Could Be The Most Violent X-Men Game Ever

Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Wolverine is still years away from release, but its titular character has a violent reputation many fans are hoping the new game will live up to. Logan’s adamantium claws are a recipe for dismemberment, but video games have been known to frequently shy away from excessive gore. There is, however, precedent for a gratuitously violent Wolverine game in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, the movie tie-in.

The 2009 film of the same name is widely considered one of the worst superhero movies to date. But its tie-in game, and more specifically the X-Men Origins: Wolverine Uncaged Edition, did succeed in one major area: showing the unadulterated violence made possible by having adamantium claws and superhuman tissue regeneration. Regardless of whether or not Marvel’s Wolverine is open world like Spider-Man, or which games it takes combat mechanics influence from, it would do well to follow in the X-Men Origins game’s footsteps when it comes to blood and gore.

The movie tie-in game ended up a third person hack-and-slash game with similar combo mechanics to the original God of War games. There were a number of satisfyingly violent coup de grace animations befitting Wolverine, from dismemberments and decapitations to impaling enemies on objects in the environment, all accompanied by an exceptional amount of blood. Logan himself would be torn to pieces as the player took damage, with bones and organs on display before his regeneration powers corrected the mess.

Will Insomniac Emulate The X-Men Origins: Wolverine Violence?

Details on the upcoming game are extremely scarce, but a Marvel’s Wolverine job posting emphasizes violence as an important component of the game. Insomniac’s principal designer Drew Murray took to Twitter in November to elaborate on the gameplay engineer job, mentioning it will involve “creating cuts, slashes, gouges, severs, gashes, stabs, [and] a lot more.” Some of these could conceivably be represented in surface-level changes to character models, but the inclusion of severs and gashes implies both dismemberment and a (un)healthy amount of blood.

These are good early indications that Insomniac won’t shy away from violence in Marvel’s Wovlerine. Logan is a far superior Wolverine movie to X-Men Origins, partly because of its uncompromisingly mature tone and graphic fight scenes. The X-Men Origins: Wolverine game is likely remembered more fondly than its movie counterpart simply because it shows the gore expected from Wolverine. Marvel’s Wolverine should be rated M if it wants to do its eponymous character justice, and while early hints are promising, fans can’t be sure until Insomniac eventually shows some gameplay.

Source: Drew Murray/Twitter

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