With an ouvré that includes well-regarded games like Ratchet and Clank and Sunset Overdrive, Insomniac Games’ reputation precedes it. Most of that rep is tied up with the idea that Insomniac produces polished, high-quality games. But as the PlayStation studio illustrated during September’s State of Play, its identity is also wrapped up in the production of a specific type of game. We’re talking family-friendly, approachable games that can verge into T-for-teen territory. Insomniac can get serious, and does in series like Marvel’s Spider-Man (and the all-but-forgotten Fuse). But no matter how many combos you throw or how you sling your web powers, Spider-Man does not kill.
In Wolverine, there’s no question that Logan kills — and that’s an understatement. Logan maims, he decapitates, he tears to shreds. “Visceral” is a word the developers use repeatedly when discussing Wolverine. He does not, as Spider-Man does, find a loophole that defangs the violence.
As fans of the Spider-Man series know, the game tries to account for situations where the wallcrawler does something to an enemy that could, theoretically, result in death. If you try and hit baddies off tall buildings, for example, the game will automatically glue that NPC to a nearby wall. While fans have taken umbrage with this idea — surely repeated hits to the head won’t end well for those Spidey’s foes — Sony insists that Spider-Man is not a murderer. This hasn’t stopped fans from concocting situations where a death is all but confirmed, but as far as the narrative is concerned, Spider-Man is a nice guy who never goes too far.
Wolverine is another matter entirely. His origin story is inextricably linked with violence, and Wolverine comic and movie storylines typically emphasize how difficult it is for Logan to leave that violence behind when he’s fused to his signature adamantium claws. No wonder, then, that Insomniac Games’ first behind-the-scenes look at its new superhero game begins with creative director Marcus Smith immediately addressing the elephant in the room.
“The question that comes up a lot to us at Insomniac Games is, ‘Are you going to make a Wolverine game that is as violent and visceral as the character in the comics?'”
Smith doesn’t answer the question directly. Instead, the dev diary cuts to a series of gruesome kills spearheaded by Wolverine himself. Later on, a developer in the video describes Wolverine the character as a “ball of rage and fury.” Making a good Wolverine game, in other words, means that Insomniac cannot overlook a central aspect of his character. The same was true for Spider-Man, a hero whose brand is all about being the everyman’s protector. Wolverine just happens to land on the other end of the spectrum.
If violence is central to Wolverine as a character, developing custom tech to render blood almost seems like a foregone conclusion. During the footage, we see all manner of blood spatters bursting from bodies savaged by Wolverine. That blood is soaked up by its environment, whether that’s Logan’s face or the velvet tint visible on the game’s snow. Quick peeks at bloody cloth and fur suggest that the blood’s effect on the environment is dynamic. The physics here are sophisticated enough that the game can depict blood getting caught between Wolverine’s teeth. At one point, a developer mentions the blood pools. As far as I can tell, the footage doesn’t show how the game handles increasing volumes of blood. Pointing it out at all, though, suggests something is going on under the hood. I’m reminded of how The Last of Us Part 2 integrated custom blood-pooling effects to make specific death scenes all the more devastating.
This far in, I feel compelled to acknowledge the barbarity of discussing how realistically a video game can render blood, or framing its depiction as a technological advancement. It’s true, this is all kind of weird, even if a bloody Wolverine game sticks closely to the spirit of the source material. I’m honing in on this detail for two reasons. One, the term itself is surreal and bears repeating: BLOOD TECH! This is peak video games, right here. And two, the way Insomniac Games discusses this technology makes it clear that this is new territory for the family-friendly studio.
At one point, a developer in the video says that she wasn’t sure if one of the animations where Wolverine pulls his claws up through an enemy’s face might be “going too far.”
Spoilers, it’s still in the game. “It looks fantastic,” says Jess Reiner-Reed, a project director on Wolverine.
I, for one, am excited to see how this new version of Insomniac Games redefines itself. The studio’s been around long enough that it could legally drink, it can have some Rated M For Mature as a treat.