Insomniac’s Wolverine game might be full of gratuitous violence, but nudity is being kept to a minimum according to a detailed listing on the US age rating website.
Sony and developer Insomniac are keen to let you know that the upcoming Wolverine game is going to be far more violent than the Spider-Man games, by exemplifying how bloody the action will be.
Granted, the Spider-Man games could get a bit brutal (particularly once Venom showed up), but Wolverine gameplay sees Mortal Kombat levels of gore with how you dismember enemy limbs and slice through faces.
It’s no surprise then, that the game has netted itself an 18 rating in the UK though according to the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board), it’s also because there’s some partial nudity as well.
The ESRB is responsible for assigning age ratings in the US and on its website, it has given Wolverine the M for Mature label due to ‘Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, [and] Strong Language.’
That ‘partial nudity’ part is what has caught some peoples’ interest, especially since the listing goes a bit more in-depth. It doesn’t sound like it’ll be anything too lewd, though, as it only mentions that ‘A handful of sequences briefly depict a character’s exposed buttocks.’
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Naturally, the question is whose buttocks are being exposed. The obvious assumption is Wolverine himself, but under what circumstances is he going to show his presumably hairy bum to the camera?
If we were going to give a serious answer, the game could depict Wolverine’s origin story via flashback, when he was experimented on as Weapon X. This has been depicted in the comics with him completely naked outside of a weird headset and crotch covering paraphernalia. Maybe it’ll even be an unlockable costume.
Alternatively, it could be referring to one of the game’s female characters. The traditional costume for Psylocke of the X-Men, is a famously revealing outfit that emphasises her butt cheeks and has been used in Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 and as a skin for Marvel Rivals.
Psylocke has not been confirmed for the game, however, and female characters that are set to appear, like Jean Grey and Mystique, are usually more sensibly dressed.
Whatever the case, there’s something inherently amusing/disturbing about Insomniac restraining itself from depicting too much nudity, when it has zero qualms with using the gratuitous violence as a selling point.
That level of violence stands to make Wolverine a bit of a harder sell than Spider-Man, although it’s still likely to sell very well given the popularity of Wolverine as a character.
The timing could perhaps have been better, as there’s no Wolverine movie out in the near future. Instead, Marvel has released a new Spider-Man movie, Brand New Day, which has been tremendously successful at the box office.
It’s even bumped up sales of the Insomniac Spider-Man games on Steam. At time of writing, Spider-Man 2 is the platform’s seventh best-selling game while Spider-Man Remastered sits at 10th place.
It probably would’ve made more sense if Spider-Man 3 had come out now and the Wolverine game when a new actor was cast for the role in the MCU, presumably in the next couple of years, but these things are hard to schedule.
Spider-Man 2’s ending (if not its sales) practically guaranteed a sequel and, according to an old release schedule from the 2023 Insomniac hack, is planned for autumn 2028.
That hack immediately altered Insomniac’s plans, but the same schedule did say Wolverine would be out in autumn 2026, which the studio is delivering on. A 2028 release, however, could mean Spider-Man 3 will be a PlayStation 6 game.
Sony’s new console is widely presumed to launch within the next couple of years, but given it’s also expected to be very expensive (potentially more than £1,000), it’d be a shockingly bold (and foolish) move if Spider-Man 3 was locked to the console and not a cross gen release like the Miles Morales game.
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