Marvel’s Wolverine won’t be a declawed version of the iconic mutant according to a new report, which claims that the game will be aiming for an M-rating.
According to Giant Bomb’s Jeff Grubb, developer Insomniac Games is targeting a “hard-R” with its interpretation of Wolverine, which will reportedly be a unique take on the character that is divorced from his big-screen incarnation played by Hugh Jackman. “They’ll avoid having any links or anything that evokes the Fox movies, they want it to stand on its own,” Gubb said. “I was trying to nail down the setting and heard it will start before he joins the X-Men, which also makes sense for a Wolverine game.”
As for a release date, Grubb claims that the game could be out “as early as Fall 2024”, just a year after the planned release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 in 2023, but did note that it could slip to 2025. This may not be an open-world game in the same vein as Insomniac’s Spider-Man adventures, with Grubb noting that God of War Ragnarok’s semi-open world design is serving as inspiration for how the game unfolds.
The Wolverine game was first revealed during the September 2021 PlayStation Showcase event and was said to be in very early development back then. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales creative leads Brian Horton and Cameron Christian are directing this standalone title, and Grubb added that the emotional narrative and cutting-edge gameplay are shaping up to create something that is “truly special”.
This wouldn’t be the first time that a Wolverine game hasn’t been scared to spill some blood, with the most notable example being Raven Software’s tie-in to 2009’s X-Men: Origins: Wolverine. That game featured over-the-top gore and dismemberment, as well as gruesome levels of damage that could be inflicted on Logan’s body. When it comes to mature PlayStation-exclusive games, the God of War games have set a precedent as all titles have received M-ratings for violent content.
In other Wolverine news, Hugh Jackman is busy training to get back into fighting shape for Deadpool 3, as he’ll once again be playing the deadly mutant opposite Ryan Reynolds’ merc with a mouth.
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