As far as superheroes go, Wolverine is often considered one of the more violent characters. Since his main abilities revolve around adamantium claws and the ability to regenerate from massive damage, his stories often have their fair share of violence. However, with Marvel’s Wolverine, Insomniac Games doesn’t want to make squeamish players feel left out.
In an interview with GamesRadar, the studio wanted to ensure that players who don’t like seeing blood, gore, and dismemberment in their games won’t have to. “Yes, we are making a Wolverine game. Yes, it is extremely bloody. But we also understand that not everybody has the same level of squeamishness when it comes to blood. So, we have settings where you can disable blood, disable gore, disable [dismemberment],” said creative director Marcus Smith.
Head of technology Mike Fitzgerald noted that offering the option of disabling gore was quite challenging, since there is “a very complex set of systems” at play in the game when it comes to displaying gore.
“The way it affects characters is one thing. The way it affects environments is another thing. The way it sprays out of the characters is another thing. A lot of cinematics have custom-authored blood that’s independent [to what] someone very carefully painted onto a character or object. Finding all those places, making them all relate into the accessibility system the right way, took quite a bit of work, effort, and testing.”
He went on to note that since people have “a real reaction to that stuff,” the team has ensured that edge cases are accounted for. “We don’t want to surprise anyone with it when they think they have it turned off.”
Senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed notes that, while “Wolverine is a brutal character,” his stories never glorify violence. Rather, the character always has nobler goals, even if that means his enemies must be cut down.
“That’s a part of the DNA of Wolverine. It is rated mature as far as topics, and as you mentioned, as far as violence, but Logan is not somebody who is ever glorifying violence. He’s not cutting up people for violence’s sake. He’s doing it because he got into some situation. He has to defend somebody who can’t defend themselves. He has to fight [against] injustice.”
Marvel’s Wolverine is being developed for PS5, and is slated for release on September 15th. Smith has previously spoken on a variety of subjects, including that it won’t be an origin story. “He does not remember how that happened, why it happened, and we are not really covering it because we’re not doing an origin story.”
Reiner-Reed has also confirmed that, while the whole game will be available on the disc for the physical release, the studio wants to encourage players to at least download the day-one patch.
