Marvel’s Wolverine will be linear and not open world confirm Insomniac

Insomniac has confirmed various details about Marvel’s Wolverine, including a no gore option and no Spider-Man.

Sony kicked off last night’s State Of Play with a new look at Marvel’s Wolverine, which featured appearances from other X-Men characters like Jean Grey and Mystique. 

Following the presentation, developer Insomniac has shared various other details about what to expect and confirmed the action title will not have an open world element – unlike the studio’s Marvel’s Spider-Man games.

Speaking in an interview with IGN, Wolverine’s game director Mike Daly described the title as a ‘globe-hopping adventure’, where you wouldn’t be anchored to one location. 

‘So what you can expect out of the game is that we’ve created a comic book-style pacing, dense story, that’s like a rollercoaster and it grips you from beginning to end,’ Daly said. ‘And generally speaking, you’re driven through all of these missions by important events and plot points that are happening. So in that sense, what you saw in the gameplay trailer was kind of representative. 

‘Logan’s got a lead, he’s got a direction, but he has agency in how he decides to approach it. The areas have different paths you could take. Stealth is optional; you could do it or you could not do it, you could jump straight into combat. And you can poke your nose around the nooks and crannies of the world to find things here and there, and some optional content and collectibles along the way.’

Daly explains the environments will have variety in how they ‘feel’, which ‘leads to different flavours of gameplay as well’ – stating some will be ‘more about observation and traversal’, while others will focus on ‘stalking enemies and taking them out’, or ‘finding characters to interact with’. 

He added: ‘I can say we did not set out to make an open world game or a sandbox game. What we really wanted was a high-octane, high intrigue, linear single-player adventure, and the missions reflect that in their structure.’

While all the trailers so far have made Marvel’s Wolverine look like a linear experience, it’s not something Insomaniac have talked about before now.

Similarly, in the same interview, Insomniac ruled out a crossover with Spider-Man, despite the two games sharing the same Marvel universe. 

‘It’s correct that it does take place in the 1048 Marvel Universe, which is the Insomniac video game universe,’ co-game director Marcus Smith said. ‘It happens in the same world, but we don’t have any crossover. Spider-Man will not be making an appearance in Wolverine.’

One of the most divisive aspects of Marvel’s Wolverine might be the gore, but Insomniac has clarified that it can be reduced or turned off entirely via the accessibility options.

Speaking about the gore settings, Daly said: ‘It’s clearly integrated into the game in a lot of different ways, and so it’s a nuanced feature that is very selective about what we show, what we censor, turning off blood and things like that, just in order to make it more palatable to people who don’t really want to have that part of the experience.’

Marvel’s Wolverine launches worldwide September 15, 2026 on PlayStation 5 only.

As for what else was shown during the State Of Play, Sony debuted God Of War Laufey, Unti Dawn 2, and the return of Stuntman. 

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