5 New Details From Our Interview With Insomniac

Sabretooth is a real jerk

Sabretooth, as Marvel fans know, is a jerk, but he’s an even bigger jerk when Wolverine’s around. The long-running rivalry between the two mutants is the stuff of comic book legend, but Insomanic brings it to life in its upcoming video game by forcing the two traditional adversaries to team up. Here’s how it works.

What adds replay value in Marvel’s Wolverine?

Insomniac told us all about the various features in Marvel’s Wolverine designed to keep people playing after the credits roll. One in particular sounds like a proper nightmare.

Why don’t the X-Men Don’t Exist in Marvel’s Wolverine?

Don’t expect to see the X-Men in Marvel’s Wolverine — they don’t exist at this point in Wolverine’s story. But why? Insomniac explains.

How does Marvel’s Wolverine run on base PS5?

Marvel’s Wolverine has performance and fidelity modes, as you’d expect. But the performance mode on PS5 is particularly impressive. Here’s why.

Marvel’s Wolverine: the final preview

We went hands-on with Marvel’s Wolverine. Here’s what we thought.

And here’s our Marvel’s Wolverine interview with Insomniac in full

IGN: I just want to get the general reaction to what the moment was where you learned that Wolverine was going to be your next project. What excited you about the project and was there anything that you foresaw being a challenge that you’d eventually have to overcome?

Jess Reiner-Reed: Yeah. So I started working on Marvel’s Wolverine right as we were shipping Spider-Man: Miles Morales in November 2020. And it was beyond exciting to be able to think about what are we going to now work on with this character? You’re telling a whole new fresh Logan-centric story. I had been working on Spider-Man 1 and Miles Morales for years at that point. So being able to think about, we’re going to now be making a rated mature game, going to have claws and killing enemies, and exploring a character with a lot of depth. He’s a quiet dude with a lot of mystery behind him. Yeah, I was nothing but excited when I found out we were working on Wolverine.

Mike Fitzgerald: Yeah. I think there was a little bit of, we’d been working with Spider-Man and Ratchet and Clank. These are really positive, warm and fuzzy characters. Warm and fuzzy are not two adjectives I would use for Logan. So it was a fun exercise for the studio to find, what is there about this character that matches the Insomniac spirit? What is his flavor of heroism that’s different from those guys and how do we identify with that?

Jess Reiner-Reed: Yeah. He’s not somebody who’s going to be quipping nonstop and having fun jokes at the end of every fight. So yeah, like Mike’s saying, it was really exploring what’s that story we want to tell with this character?

IGN: So you just talked about the differences of going from Spider-Man to Wolverine. Were there any design lessons or decisions that you were able to carry over from your work on Spider-Man and bring them to Wolverine? Or did you see Wolverine as an opportunity to do a clean slate and do something different in the superhero space?

Mike Fitzgerald: I think the main lesson you could say we took through is that understanding the character deeply, what makes that character resonate with people. Even people who’ve experienced different versions of that character over time, finding the core of it and putting the player in a position to fulfill that fantasy thoroughly is the most important goal you can have. So learning about Wolverine, working with the folks at Marvel Games to understand, what about this character is core to him and making sure we live up to that.

Jess Reiner-Reed: Yeah. I think going back to your earlier question about what was that kind of early development learning about Wolverine? Obviously rated mature, violent. I was just remembering, I think realizing that Spider-Man doesn’t kill enemies. All the enemies get web to the side of the buildings. Now Logan can actually take out enemies. So you can have that battlefield aftermath and really get to explore what that combat space can be. That was fantastic early on.

IGN: Was that kind of like a liberating feeling to not have to worry about enemies dying?

Jess Reiner-Reed: It was nice to be able to finally knock an enemy off a roof and have them die! Yeah, definitely. But I’d say, game development is a very iterative process. We get better at what we’re doing over the course of every single game. So there’s always learning lessons, not to sound too corny, but there’s always learning lessons from each game that we can take. So there’s a lot of Insomniac DNA in Marvel’s Wolverine from what we learned from Spider-Man. But it was also, what would Logan do was really the core question we were asking every time. Not like, “Oh, how can we repurpose something from Spider-Man?” No, what would be right at the foundation for Logan?

IGN: Combat is obviously a huge part of this game. When it came to designing Wolverine’s combat, what were some of the core pillars of design that you wanted to make sure that you nailed in terms of it being the power fantasy of being Wolverine?

Jess Reiner-Reed: So when working on the combat in Wolverine, you want to make sure that it feels brutal. You want to make sure that it feels aggressive. Wolverine’s somebody who, he’s not going to go run and hide in the corner and wait for his health to go up or anything. You’re incentivized to have that aggression and keep fighting different enemies. We wanted to make sure to get his rage. So that’s a core part of Logan, is he has this animalistic berserker rage and we wanted to make sure that came across in our game mechanics in combat. I hope you got to play part of that today where, when you get to rage tier three, you are just taking out enemies. He’s almost blinded with rage and all he can see is the enemies in front of him.

The other parts we wanted to make sure to get right as far as Wolverine is his enhanced senses. So he’s a tracker. He can, especially in stealth situations, you can start to see where enemies are, where a normal human wouldn’t be able to notice that. Obviously his claws and adamantium skeleton. His healing, that was one of the things early in development of like, cool, how do you make a game around a guy who can constantly be healing? And I think that really came across in what we built.

Logan’s good at fighting one enemy. He can probably take two enemies out. Once he starts to get swarmed and there’s a hoard of enemies, that’s where things start to be a problem for Logan. So we see that in our gameplay.

Mike Fitzgerald: Over the course of development, I think we learned a lot to say, okay, healing factor. I think on the surface that feels really easy to do in a video game. Yeah, you have a health bar and so the health bar is going to go up a bunch. But really trying to think about, okay, this is a unique piece of our character. What can we do in the gameplay that reflects that in a unique way? So players are thinking about, oh yes, this would only be in a Wolverine game. So something like the last stand moment where you use that rage you’ve built up during gameplay to sort of regenerate. You can see his body regenerate. You can see the damage he takes over the course of combat and sort of feeling that push and pull of his healing factor as you play.

IGN: Speaking of that healing factor, I have to bring up when you guys revealed some of the gameplay in June, one of the conversations that came out of that reveal was his regenerating clothing. No. Do you have a explanation for that or is there an in-game lore reason? What was going on with that?

Mike Fitzgerald: I think there might be something in there! I think mostly there’s some practicalities to it. You can’t play through most of the game wearing just shredded rags on his body. So we find the right balance between clothing that reflects the gameplay you’re doing and this brutal combat and the realities of that. And then finding the right moments to have it restore itself so you get that right cinematic feel of Wolverine.

Jess Reiner-Reed: Yeah, exactly what you said. The right balance, because early on you would be playing through missions and your clothes are shredded for way too long. You don’t feel as powerful as you’re playing through. So yeah, we definitely found that right balance was the right thing to say.

IGN: Was it challenging coming up with all those different suits that he can wear, but also having to have damage go for each of those suits?

Mike Fitzgerald: Yeah, it’s a unique thing for this game is as we develop each suit, we have to make this whole damage pipeline and process for each that show damage in different ways. But maybe more of the challenge is just deciding which not to do. There’s so many fantastic Wolverine suits through the comics. We get to make some original ones with Marvel games as well. And so it’s always a fun part of the development process, is arguing about which ones we actually want.

Jess Reiner-Reed: I love the suits we ended up with in game. I think in the press demo you played, we have the Weapon X suit, which is probably my favorite one with the helmet and everything. But we wanted to make sure that there’s a lot of player choice with what suit and what claws you’re going to be choosing, and we needed to have the damage reflect on all of those. So I’m glad you noticed that.

IGN: One of the things I wanted to touch on was these team up opportunities where you go into battle with Jean Grey or Sabretooth. Where did that come out of? And are there any other characters that players can look forward to doing these team ups with?

Jess Reiner-Reed: Yeah. So in the footage we’ve shown and the gameplay we’ve shown so far, I think today in our trailer there’s a moment where Logan and Sabretooth are fighting together. Logan’s holding a trash guard and Sabretooth is just ripping him apart. And then as you mentioned in the June footage, I think from State of Play, we had the different kind of ally cooperative moves with Jean Grey. Those came from a few different spots, but those are just really fun and you feel that connection with the other character as you’re playing. I love those moments. And there’s more you haven’t seen, but I don’t want to spoil anything. So yes, there are.

But one I want to mention is Sabretooth. You may have not seen it because it kind of randomly happens, but sometimes Sabretooth steals your kill. So you’ll be in the middle of taking out an enemy and he like, wrecking ball grabs the enemy and takes him out. And the first couple of times you’re like, “What the hell, Sabretooth?” But then you’re like, “Wait, that’s the exact feeling we want the player to…” Logan has this animosity with Sabretooth. And it’s like, “Yeah, way to go guy. You just took my kill. Thanks.” So yeah, I love some of those moments we have in there.

But conversely, Jean Grey, holding up with TK and then you being able to take out an enemy. Those feel great.

IGN: We’ve seen a lot of iconic takes on Wolverine. We’ve seen Hugh Jackman, Cal Dodd, Steve Blum. What do you think makes Liam McIntyre’s portrayal stand out among what’s already been done with the character?

Jess Reiner-Reed: He’s Australian!

Mike Fitzgerald: We talk about Spider-Man as a character. He’s sort of very outgoing. He says what he feels. Wolverine as a character is much more internal. You have to read a lot on his face. You have to read into what he’s saying and the tone in which he’s saying it. You have to get across this sort of rage-filled, animalistic exterior, and then also a very soft emotional interior as well. And Liam does a fantastic job representing both those things. We invested quite a bit to make sure we could reflect that in the game as well.

Jess Reiner-Reed: Yeah, he has that nuanced emotions. We scanned Liam, so every emotion you see, every growl and everything is coming from Liam. And if you get a chance to meet him, he’s a fantastic guy in person to collaborate with. He loves games. And he’s also one of the nicest humans I’ve met. So it’s very different to then see him switch into his Logan role.

I’d say also when we were casting for Wolverine, what Liam brought to that character is he wasn’t coming in being like, “I’m Wolverine.” He wasn’t like putting on a character. He just was. And that’s really what we needed, because there were other people that were coming in for casting and they’re putting on a voice. They’re putting on something. Liam was just like, “This is who I am in my soul.” I was like, “Dude, you’re It.”

IGN: So coming from Spider-Man, which is a large open world game with a ton of different side activities you can do to keep players busy after the campaign is over, Wolverine is a much more linear kind of experience. Are there things that you have for players that are in mind to keep them playing after the credits roll?

Jess Reiner-Reed: Yeah. So when you’re playing Marvel’s Wolverine, as you mentioned, it is a story-driven adventure. Logan is pulled through to be uncovering these mysteries of his past, but you can go off the beaten path. We have the whiskey bottles that are going to help with your progression. We also have the material crates, and those will give you the raw materials to unlock suits. And we have Nightmare Doors. Did you get a chance to find that?

IGN: I got to do the traversal one.

Jess Reiner-Reed: Okay. Maybe Shinjuku Shuffle is probably maybe the one you did. Cool. So optionally, you can find these nightmare doors, which are manifestations of the horrible things happening in Logan’s mind. There’s many of those throughout the game with different types of trials. So all of that has replay. We also have mission replay. So you can go back through and play any mission and find those collectibles you may have missed.

And then as soon as you wrap up the game, we have New Game Plus available. In a New Game Plus, you can use all of your loadout and progression that you already unlocked. You can choose whatever suit you want. So there’s some fun things that happen there. And also there’s some adaptations that are only available in New Game Plus. So there’s some fresh gameplay for folks.

Mike Fitzgerald: Yeah. They can let you amp up the difficulty or make Logan the much more powerful and aggressive character. And New Game Plus is available at launch. It’s not a post-launch addition.

IGN: So for you, Mike, you work within the world of tech at Insomniac. And given that Spider-Man, Miles Morales, and Spider-Man 2 are still two technological showcases of what the PS5 is really capable of, was there any pressure when it came to following up the work that you did on Spider-Man? And specifically, is there anything that you’re exceptionally proud of that you’ve gotten to work on with Wolverine?

Mike Fitzgerald: Oh, there’s so much. I will say you do finish a game and you’re like, “Wait, how are we going to do better than this?” It’s a lot of pressure in that sense.

Wolverine as a character and as a game offered us a lot of opportunities to do some different things. So Spider-Man’s a very urban city-based title. We invest a lot in technology to represent that. And then Marvel’s Wolverine takes us outside the city. We spend some time in the wilderness of Canada, in a different nature of city in Madripoor. So we invested in a lot of tech around foliage and the jungles that you start the game in. All that foliage is very reactive to wind and characters and the environment going on around it. We knew Logan’s a really destructive character. Just mentioned the aftermath after you fight a big battle. We wanted to make sure you didn’t feel like you were defeating a bunch of The Hand and then walking out of this pristine market that you happened to be in. So most of the props in the game are destructible, react in physically accurate ways. We invested a ton in that technology. So market stalls and tables and everything around you is splintering and flying off as you’re doing combat.

And then we also knew Logan’s not a bloodthirsty character, but he is a violent one. And we knew we needed to represent that in the game. So we invested a lot in how damage is reflected on him in his suit, on enemies and their suits. And then as you attack them, the blood sprays coming off them are some really interesting fluid tech. So it’s not just pre-baked visual effects. These are actual blood particles coming out. They release into the simulation. They hit the ground and make the exact splatter mark they would make if they land on Logan. They leave blood there. If he walks through water, it washes off and leaves blood swirls in the water. And so, just investing in a lot of that, making sure the environment and the characters feel like a real interacting space together.

Jess Reiner-Reed: I’m so glad you talked about the blood. Also, from early on in development, we knew we wanted to make this 60 FPS working on the base PS5 in performance mode. And we’ve definitely been able to accomplish that. The game feels super smooth. There’s also a fidelity mode, but being able to have the game run at 60 with ray racing…

Mike Fitzgerald: Yeah. We’ve always had these fidelity and performance modes and then we always sort of last minute get the performance mode with ray tracing and like, but this is pretty good! And so for this game from the start, we said, you know what? We know we’re confident we can ship this now. This is going to be a 60 frames-per-second game with ray tracing as the PS5 should have. We’re going to build the game around this and towards this. And it’s the default mode for the first time for us in one of our games. It’s important for the presentation.

IGN: One of the things that I was kind of surprised by when I was playing through the game, you have that first part that’s all action, just get pedal to the metal, slashing your claws. And then once you get to Old Town, it becomes very slow and it’s very character driven. Is that a kind of balance that you’re aiming for throughout the whole game? How much I guess exploring and just being a character in a world talking to people should players expect in this game?

Jess Reiner-Reed: There’s a few pacing moments in the game where Logan does have these moments of, I’m almost going to say reflection over the kind of the rollercoaster of battle you just went on. Those are the moments where we get to see how he’s interacting with characters. We kind of mentioned this earlier, but Logan’s a pretty stoic guy and you might not really understand him just talking one-on-one. But once you start to see how is he interacting with Mystique, how is he talking with Walter or Jean? You start to really get more of the depth of the character. So yes, we do have these moments where pacing wise, it has a little bit more of a moment where you can get to learn more about the narrative, because then we’re going to rocket ship send you on a rollercoaster of more action.

Mike Fitzgerald: We start the game and he’s rejoining Team X, which after a three-year hiatus, he has a history with these characters. It’s a complex one and we want to find ways to explore that and get some reward from it.

Jess Reiner-Reed: And I hope this is answering your question, but the opening missions that you play were obviously the opening missions, and then we jump you ahead to the end of act one. So there is quite a bit of still action rollercoaster before. Pacing wise, when somebody’s sitting on their couch, they’ll have gone through many hours of that before they’re getting to that moment in Madripoor in the bar.

IGN: Obviously you can keep your secrets close to your chest, but do you have an estimate of how many Easter eggs and little secrets you’ve included in there? Because I was looking around and I found a couple!

Jess Reiner-Reed: We have a great partnership with Marvel Games. We’ve been making so many games together and we really love Easter eggs… I’m glad you found a couple!

Mike Fitzgerald: I love the visual ones too of just, when cinematics reference a famous comic panel or evoke a certain comic book cover. And we have a lot of fun instances of that as well. Some of them are in our trailers, as people have noticed already.

IGN: I know we’ve kind of already talked about things that you’re really proud of, but is there anything that you’re really looking forward for players to get to experience for the first time once they boot up Wolverine?

Jess Reiner-Reed: Oh man. I might have a couple, so I don’t know if I have one. The suits, I’m very excited for players to see the suits that we have. Fans are going to recognize some, be excited about some custom ones. And I just love trying on different suits as I’m playing through the game. Seeing them in cinematics. They just look so good. Anyway, so I’m excited with that.

I am also very excited for when folks have kind of a longer playtime, you got to play for a little bit today, but really understanding the flow of combat with Rage. When you get into that Rage Tier 3, you’re feeling super cool taking out enemies. You feel the flow, you have that battlefield aftermath, put down the controller and you’re like, damn, I felt like Wolverine. That feels awesome. So I truly think both fans of Wolverine and also just, I don’t know much about Wolverine, but I love video games, those people are also going to have that moment where they go, “Damn, that felt really cool.” So those are the things I’m excited about.

Mike Fitzgerald: I’m going to say the story and the cinematics. One thing we try and make sure as a studio we do is to get better at this every time. Game to game, we are improving our craft as a studio in the production of games, in how we pace that work and schedule it, how we tell stories and bring them to players. And I do think this is our best work yet at that. There’s some moments in this story that are stunning. I think the performances are fantastic. I try and save it for myself a little bit. But especially as it all comes together towards the end and every department at the studio is putting in their best work and you have the lighting team dialing in the lighting on some fantastic scenes and the final visual effects passes are coming in and the optimizations are landing to make it run at a clean 60, and you’ve got the final facial animation, and you’re just like, “I can’t believe we built this and the pieces are all there.” I’m just excited for people to see the story that the team has put together.

Jess Reiner-Reed: Yeah. Logan and Jean have some really great scenes that we haven’t shared yet, but I’m excited.

Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].