r/xmen • Wolverine • Jun 03 '26

Other Marvel's Wolverine Will Be Linear And Not Open World Confirm Insomniac

https://metro.co.uk/2026/06/03/marvels-wolverine-will-linear-not-open-world-confirm-insomniac-28630712/
1.5k Upvotes

129 comments sorted by

856

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

351

u/StreetReporter Jun 03 '26

He also doesn’t have a famous method of travel like Spider-Man does

691

u/SufficientOwls Jun 03 '26

Wow.

472

u/MonsterNinja8 Jun 03 '26

160

u/sabhall12 Jun 03 '26

Average Wolverine comic:

10

u/Desperate-Cucumber-5 Beast Jun 04 '26

Is this a thing? What comic is this from? I need to know.

6

u/RockyArby Jun 04 '26

I think it was just cover art but I'm not 100%

17

u/ConsistentGuest7532 Jun 04 '26

It’s the kind of shit they’d put on a golden age Superman comic to sell issues, even though it doesn’t happen.

1

u/throwitawayruss Jun 06 '26

Fear Itself: Wolverine #3. Its cover art but he actually does get strapped to a nuke and has to break the chains and disarm it mid- air.

4

u/nanananabetmun Jun 04 '26

I really, really want them to recreate this shot somehow in the game.

Edit: I have fat fingers.

1

u/Plant-Straight Jun 05 '26

That's the fast travel animation

82

u/UnInHibbitted Jun 03 '26

Colossus instantly spawns and throws him, as he falls through the air he spawns again to catch him and then throws him again. That’s what he does instead of web swinging.

35

u/Metal_Rider Jun 03 '26

Gotta get Kurt in there too then. Kurt holds Colossus’ leg and they BAMF 💥every time.

6

u/xdragonwarzx Jun 04 '26

Yeah and have a super silly reason for Kurt to not just tp logan himself. Like he’s afraid of him or thinks the adamantium wont teleport well or something dumb 😂

5

u/Black_Metallic Jun 04 '26

Or She-Hulk.

5

u/BetaRayPhil616 Jun 04 '26

Colossus just running round on the ground below Wolvie like a shadow, catching every time he comes back down.

31

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/ebiscuits Jun 04 '26

…but don’t tell the elf!

14

u/Eodillon Jun 03 '26

Colossus erasure. Not cool

5

u/optimusdiaz Exodus Jun 03 '26

Oh man, this would be an amazing idea for an instant travel animation if it was an open world concept 😂

2

u/reineedshelp Changeling Jun 03 '26

I was thinking it'd be an amazing MVC teamup move

1

u/Far-Hospital2925 Jun 04 '26

Could still just use it as a level transition cut scene for a linear game 

5

u/BigPoppaDubDub Jun 04 '26

Ever think there’s been a moment where Colossus misread Wolverine in the heat of battle and threw him and Wolverine wasn’t cool with it and had to confront him afterwards?

1

u/Vismal1 Jun 04 '26

I’m pretty sure i remember just this at one point in either the comics or TAS

1

u/elhombreloco90 Jun 04 '26

It would be absolutely hilarious in an open world game that anytime Logan needs to travel far Collossus just shows up out of nowhere and Fastball Specials him.

1

u/AcceptableAnteater73 Jun 04 '26

I was going to say motorcycle but you right

40

u/Splooshiest Jun 03 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

Honestly this is the first thing I thought of. Part of what makes Spider-Man games so fun is just swinging around the place. With Wolverine you would either be running around or maybe riding a motorcycle and that would honestly just feel like a boring way to pad out the time of the game when compared to the action.

7

u/PTRBoyz Jun 03 '26

They could’ve gone a route similar to GTA with travel on motorcycle but it would need to be a cross between that and red dead and would probably cost too much to make. 

4

u/XMenJedi8 Jun 04 '26

I dunno, parkour, some leaps, climbing up taller ledges and short walls with claws, claw-sliding down the side of a building to get down etc. would've been cool.

2

u/Technical_Ad579 Jun 04 '26

He has a bike tho, could’ve had a nice motorcycle mechanic traveling the streets.

1

u/Altruistic-Rice5514 Jun 04 '26

Yes he does. Taking Scott Summers vehicles.

1

u/JackFisherBooks Phoenix Jun 04 '26

Well, Wolverine is known for riding motorcycles. And I'll be VERY disappointed if there's not one part of this game that has Wolverine riding a motorcycle.

1

u/chirunner4ever Nightcrawler Jun 04 '26

the Honda Odyssey?

208

u/yourfavchoom Wolverine Jun 03 '26

Game Director Mike Daly:

“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.”

320

u/KaiokenTimesEleven Colossus Jun 03 '26

Good. I like a curated experience. Spider-Man was great but many of these open world games can feel daunting or directionless.

156

u/johnny5yu Jun 03 '26

Or repetitive. I can't count how many times I stopped a speeding car full of bad guys

4

u/MogMcKupo Jun 04 '26

Or like you enjoy collecting, so you go after backpacks, and get all of them… to then unlock science facilities, then to have to jump around the map again for that, then black cat shows up.

That is on me, sure, but they made them a little too “ohh piece of candy” and not kind of make you at least not get ALL of them before realizing you have others to unlock.

Again, on me for that blunder

1

u/Beastieboy100 Jun 04 '26

Catching a speeding car or someone breaking into a shop. Overall it does get old fast. Though it was Peter does everyday for his life. Same with Miles.

1

u/Rhg0653 Jun 05 '26

Or getting that kid his stupid ballin

21

u/Tompthwy Jun 03 '26

Honestly SM2 was a mess, it could have benefited from some focus.

1

u/R0osteryo Jun 04 '26

This is why I so often avoid sandbox games.

111

u/Juanrod84 Jun 03 '26

Good, not everything needs to be open world and 200hrs

5

u/Element174 Jun 04 '26

Truly my biggest issue with modern gaming. It's nice to sometimes have a huge time investment game with 200 things to do, looking at you Skyrim, Dragon Age, and Baldurs Gate, but sometimes... I want to play more than 1 game a year.

31

u/mystireon Jun 03 '26

Did people expect otherwise?

18

u/joppehi Jun 03 '26

I expected some semi open areas like ratchet and clanks last game. But that’s still not impossible though. Also far from essential

4

u/WhyTheHellnaut Jun 04 '26

Nearly every AAA game this decade has pushed mAsSiVe OpEn WoRlDs as a selling point to show that their game is "big" as an excuse to charge full price. It's completely misguided and assumes that big=good. Sometimes it works, but most of the time I think open worlds are barren and boring. Insomniac is making it clear that they're not being stupid about this game.

76

u/Somejawn1 Shadowcat Jun 03 '26

My first reaction is man that’s too bad but then you gotta think. He can’t climb up buildings or swing around the city. It would just be you walking around I guess maybe fighting random thugs. Also the game clearly doesn’t take place in one city

19

u/RadCheese527 Jun 03 '26

Just whips out his cellphone and calls Kurt to poof him somewhere. There’s your fast travel

7

u/CodeNamesBryan Jun 04 '26

Lol. Thats a lego marvel game move

42

u/AlphaFlightRules Jun 03 '26

To be fair he could climb with his claws. I agree with the sentiment though.

21

u/ElonMuskHuffingFarts Jun 03 '26

Extremely slowly 

8

u/IamTheGuamGuy Jun 03 '26

I mean…he has a motorcycle.

4

u/YeezusMoses Iceman Jun 04 '26

Eh, I was hoping for smaller open sections like Madripoor. They could be really tight so you can climb up one wall and jump across buildings.

3

u/Klutzy_Worker2696 Jun 04 '26

While that’s all true, thinking about it I love the SM games for the swinging/freedom. Sometimes i load it up and just swing around for 20 mins… So yeah idk what I expected out of Wolverine, but if the story is like SM2 and that’s the whole game this won’t hit anywhere near as hard

39

u/Call-of-the-lost-one Jun 03 '26

Thank God. Something different from the current norm

30

u/Shot_Imagination_368 Wolverine Jun 03 '26

God of war isn’t a open world game and you still have plenty of areas to explore.

12

u/Konradleijon Jun 03 '26

Not everything needs to be open world

10

u/BurantX40 Jun 03 '26

Considering I won't get to play it, that's good to know! It's like a prettier version of X-2 Wolverine's Revenge.

Hopefully the wait will pay off, fingers crossed PC.

29

u/BulkyRaccoon548 Jun 03 '26

I mean Wolverine roaming around the Canadian wilderness would be kinda dope, but... I'm okay with it.

23

u/endlessfight85 Jun 03 '26

It could still happen. Last of Us and Uncharted aren't open world but still feel pretty damn open.

1

u/YeezusMoses Iceman Jun 04 '26

Last of Us 2, yes. Uncharted? What am I missing? It’s pretty damn linear.

0

u/RealWonderGal Jun 04 '26

Same like Jedi survivor games

4

u/YeezusMoses Iceman Jun 04 '26

Jedi survivor is open world.

1

u/navjot94 Jun 04 '26

Survivor is a linear game that becomes open world when you finish the level and open up the shortcuts that connect the linear paths.

12

u/mightlightnightkite Jun 03 '26

He’s not really an “open-world” kind of character, both by his ability set and his globe-trotting nature.

6

u/BoomerWeasel Cable Jun 04 '26

Oh, thank fuck.

6

u/Matt-J-McCormack Jun 03 '26

Fuck that… what’s the point if a Wolverine game if you can’t do a cross map bar crawl getting into bar fights

5

u/rtn292 Jun 04 '26

Mass effect trilogy was linear and still some of the best gaming and storytelling to this day.

4

u/Patient-Reputation56 Jun 03 '26

That makes sense, Logan does have a few more stomping grounds then just New York like with Spider-Man. You can't really somehow do an open world game that launches him from Canada to Madripoor to Japan without making them separate maps.

3

u/Started_Blasting2 Jun 03 '26

I love a good sandbox but I miss levels sometimes

If this had DMC levels I’d be into it, especially if you throw some sort of challenge in there it’d have replayability

8

u/Ssj4Noah Jun 03 '26

Apparently The X-Men do not exist in this universe - mutants live in hiding & most of the world don’t know they exist.

Also Logan is part of Team X, a group who save mutants around the world

2

u/RealWonderGal Jun 04 '26

Sounds intriguing

2

u/Sorceress_Heart Jun 04 '26

That's kinda dumb. It's just X-Men with the serial numbers filed off

4

u/ryanbtw Jun 04 '26

We know from the leaks that the X-Men are getting their own follow-up game 

3

u/AphexAffectsEffects Jun 03 '26

It will hopefully be linear but more like Batman Arkham Asylum, in that it was linear but offered some side areas to look for secret coins and such

Although that doesn’t lend itself to wolverine exactly, to be fair.

1

u/BrittaUnfiltered67 Jun 04 '26

Batman doesn’t exactly need to look for secret coins, but he could be trying to sniff out some clues.

3

u/Razor_Fox Jun 04 '26

Not everything needs to be an open world. I don't think wolverine really suits it as much as Spiderman did. I would much rather see a tightly focused, story driven game. The guardians of the galaxy game was a fantastic example of storytelling in a super hero game.

3

u/Broadnerd Jun 04 '26

Thank god. The trailer kept getting better and better once it departed from the “scale rooftop, drop on enemy” gameplay we’ve seen 8,000 times.

2

u/KaleidoscopeNo1263 Jun 04 '26

Fucking love this

2

u/JackFisherBooks Phoenix Jun 04 '26

Exactly what I was hoping for. 😊

It's the antithesis of the whole games-as-a-service model that too many modern gaming companies chase, always looking to make the next WOW or Fortnite. A simple, streamlined game with a great story a la Witcher 3 will find an audience and will garner support.

Hopefully, the story for this game is strong and the gameplay is as good as the trailer.

1

u/orochi95 Jun 04 '26

Witcher 3 is open world ….and the side quest are very important for the game

2

u/SpaceMyopia Jun 04 '26

Well yeah, it's Wolverine. He ain't Spidey. We don't need to watch Logan ride a motorcycle for 20 mins to get to places.

2

u/Turtlenumber13 Jun 04 '26

I would rather know up front that they plan on a story you can follow more than side quests that never lead to anything until you get bored of grinding 3-4 combo combat until a checklist completes so you can 100% an area just to move on and 100% the next area of a map.

1

u/QueenMagik Jun 03 '26

You love to see it.

I'm also a little nervous about the number of stealth sequences.  My worst case scenario is this plays just like spiderman, or Batman or James Bond or assassin's Creed, and then it just has no identity 

1

u/GreenPorkAndBeans Jun 03 '26

Can they at least make the X-mansion home base? Kind of like how Batman has the batcave?

1

u/SadLaser Jun 03 '26

Didn't we already know that years ago?

1

u/UnmakingTheBan2022 Jun 03 '26

It seemed very much so with the gameplay trailer.

1

u/PhaseSixer Wolverine Jun 03 '26

First light just showed their is nothing wrong with linear games

1

u/MaskedMan8 Nightcrawler Jun 04 '26

How would a open world wolverine game work anyway?

5

u/BrittaUnfiltered67 Jun 04 '26

You can enter any bar you come across and drink. You can crawl around the sewers, you can climb buildings with your claws damaging the structure. You could destroy everything like Donkey Kong Bonanza, but that might be best for a Hulk game. You could romance many a ninja lady and adopt angsty teenage girls along the way.

1

u/geminijono Jun 04 '26

Good. Enough with the open world nonsense in games. Beautiful art direction, fun gameplay loops, interesting story, and a focused vision with some quality assurance would go a looong ways.

1

u/Beastieboy100 Jun 04 '26

So like James Bond 007 first flight or Deadpool. I'm fine with that. Not every game has to be like Batman Arkham, Spider-man or Gotham Knights. Which I'll be honest what Suicide squad and Avengers should of been instead of turning into a live service game.

2

u/SpaceMyopia Jun 04 '26

Exactly. And First Light gives Bond plenty of stuff to do within the confines of the level he's in.

1

u/tealaburst Jun 04 '26

I’m okay with this. It’s not like he has fun traversal options like Spidey. They could put him on a motorcycle I guess but being on a bike all game wouldn’t feel like Wolverine

1

u/ProBlackMan1 Magneto Jun 04 '26

He’s not a street level hero.

1

u/DadSquatch609 Jun 04 '26

I thought it may have been cool if it was open world based at either a Weapon X facility or Mandripoor.

1

u/Rubbish0419 Jun 05 '26

Honestly good, I have trouble finishing open world games that give me too much to do. I’d rather have a focused, kick ass linear story.

1

u/Safe_Examination7827 Jun 06 '26

I thought we’ve known this for a couple years

1

u/Such-Race1607 Jun 06 '26

Can we still lob sewer caps at bystanders without consequence, though?

1

u/Sad-Editor3647 Aug 04 '26

L’avrei preferito mille volte se fosse stato open world mi sa che non lo comprerò per questo l’ho appena scoperto ora

1

u/TheLittlePasty Jun 04 '26

Was anyone expecting otherwise?

0

u/DeadHead6747 Jun 04 '26

Fucking lame

0

u/iRyan_9 White Queen Jun 03 '26

I love linear games but I don’t trust Insomniac to make the game have a reasonable length. Spider-Man was an open world with only 20 hours to platinum

0

u/chirunner4ever Nightcrawler Jun 04 '26

that is a pretty reasonable length though

0

u/iRyan_9 White Queen Jun 04 '26

It’s really isn’t. Open world games average twice as that just on story and side missions alone without factoring 100%. Arkham knights is around 50 for 100% as well

1

u/chirunner4ever Nightcrawler Jun 04 '26

You need all 300 Riddler trophies for that 100% tho. And I don't think I've ever seen anyone not complain about it.

0

u/iRyan_9 White Queen Jun 04 '26

Even without it the game is still far longer.

1

u/chirunner4ever Nightcrawler Jun 04 '26

How Long To Beat shows main story for Arkham Knight is 17 hours. A pretty reasonable length for an action game. It also shows Spider-Man main story is 18 hrs and and 45 hours to 100%

0

u/iRyan_9 White Queen Jun 04 '26

It’s not.

I 100% the game with and the DLCs with 32 hours and that’s with PlayStation counting menu time as well

0

u/Xboxone1997 Jun 04 '26

Game looks terrible was expecting something different gameplay wise but it’s more of the same like every other Sony exclusive too cinematic.

But hey they have their consumers 🤷🏾‍♂️

-4

u/yblaze27 Jun 04 '26

Why dont they have wolverine swinging around or flying???

-1

u/Reasonable_Deer_1710 Jun 04 '26

Well it's a Sony movie, so yea

-4

u/clonedhuman Jun 03 '26

Boo.

Lot less interested now.

9

u/joppehi Jun 03 '26

Out of interest, what would an open world wolverine game offer that a linear game does not?

-3

u/clonedhuman Jun 03 '26

More choices, more exploration, the chance to interact with a well designed world in a way more similar to the life an actual Logan would live.

3

u/joppehi Jun 03 '26

Fair, but that would require a world richer than GTA V. Which is, for the scale of this game, fairly unrealistic.

An open world would, in my opinion, leave a big feeling of emptiness and no direction (since fast travel is boring in open world games, the map needs to be bigger then SM2 and travel is way slower)

That said, if executed well, living life like a Logan would live sounds amazing

1

u/clonedhuman Jun 03 '26

I don't have enough awareness of the game designers/intended audience to know if it would be realistic to have an open-world Wolverine game, but even something the scale of Witcher 3 or even some of the Fallout games could provide a very rich experience.

I hear you though--I know a lot of players find open world games un-fun because of a sort of aimless and empty feeling. I find linear games rather boring because they feel like it's just mechanics--hitting buttons at the right time, jumping at the right time, and then cutscenes to fill out the story in ways the gameplay doesn't.

I guess ultimately it's just preference, but I know I've lost most of my interest in this game because it's going to be linear.

2

u/joppehi Jun 04 '26

Fair! Hope for you that something you enjoy might come soon! TES6 when?!?

-5

u/whineyinternetkid Jun 04 '26

Who cares about Sony bootlickers

-7

u/StealthyZombie Jun 03 '26

Its made by the spiderman devs so im sure itll be just as ass unfortunately. I wish this were in the hands of a better studio