Marvel's Wolverine ending explained: Post-credits, secret ending and more spoilers discussed

If you’re reading this article, I’m going to assume you’re ready for all the Marvel’s Wolverine spoilers to be pored over in granular detail as we try to unpack the game’s ending.

After 10+ hours of going utterly berserk every 10 minutes, it’s time for Wolverine to sheathe those claws and drink a honey-based tea to rest his screaming vocal cords.

It’s also time for Logan to be trapped in his mind-cabin indefinitely. You’ve unlocked mission replay and New Game Plus, but if you do nothing, I guess Logan will just chill here forever.

So, what was that bombastic ending all about? Keep on reading to find out what’s going on, or at least our best guesses.

We've broken the game's final stages down into a few key questions for you, complete with our answers/best interpretations of what it's all meant to mean. Let's get cracking, shall we?

What was Jean and Logan’s history?

Before our heroes could face the final battle, players were given a somewhat confusing flashback. Revisiting Logan’s old home, we saw glimpses of countless corpses, all belonging to Jean.

The exact history between the characters is left a little murky, but it seems like they keep meeting again and again throughout history – while Logan’s life is extended by his mutant powers, Jean is “like a Phoenix” and seems to have been resurrected many times.

Every time Jean starts life anew, it seems like she is eventually pulled into Logan’s orbit – the pair are star-crossed lovers, tied together by destiny, it would seem. But it always seems to end in tragedy, one way or the other.

The game seems to imply that, the most recent time Jean died, Essex took advantage of this opportunity by wiping Logan’s mind and recruiting him for Team X. This was around 30 years ago.

Over the course of the game, however, destiny pulled Logan and Jean back together, and they ultimately teamed up once again.

What was Essex’s plan?

In a twist that everybody saw coming, Nathaniel Essex turned out to be the big bad of the piece. Who could’ve known? His comic-book name is Mr Sinister!

In the final missions, it became apparent that Essex wanted to use all the tech he’d gained throughout the game, namely the Sentinel robots and the Helix Engine, to try and activate as many ‘dormant mutants’ as he could to try and turn the tides of the global situation between mutants and humans.

Although it may have sounded like a good idea on paper, the game has made it pretty clear that the Helix energy has pretty awful side effects for any mutants and humans that encounter it.

After Wolverine and Jean tried their best to stop as many Helix-enabled Sentinels as possible, Logan brought the fight to Essex for one final boss battle. Essex created multiple copies of himself, and things looked pretty dark for Logan at one point.

The goodies, of course, prevailed, with Jean lining up the last of Essex's duplicates for Wolverine to slice and dice. The last one in the line, we're led to assume, was the real Essex, who briefly begged Logan to stop. He didn't, of course.

Essex paid the ultimate price for his crimes. Logan straight-up killed him, with an assist from Phoenix/Jean, although death is rarely the end in comic-book media.

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Why did Jean erase Logan’s memories?

As his final action before dying, Essex sent a blast of Helix energy into Logan’s head. This awakened the villainous voice of Apocalypse inside the mind of our hero – you should remember that a similar thing happened earlier in the game, when Logan was in the Helix Engine.

The voice of Apocalypse began to speak, saying, “Remember me? He is mine, Phoenix. Forever.”

At this point, Apocalypse attempts some kind of mind-control over Logan, which he tries to resist.

Jean says, “Look at me. You have to stop this. Remember who you are.”

Logan collapses in pain, screaming and struggling against Apocalypse. He asks Jean to help, like she did with Callisto (who was mind-controlled earlier in the game).

“Death is a part of you,” Jean says. “If I burn it out, there’ll be nothing left.”

Logan says, “You’ll be left. That’s enough.”

Just as it looks like Apocalypse is about to take control of Wolverine, Jean activates her powers and Logan is suddenly pulled into a memory.

Logan realises that he cannot remember his life with Jean, or even his own name. Jean tells Logan that he is loved, and the memory ends in a flash of white.

When we pick up with Logan after this, he does not remember his fledgling relationship with Jean or much else about the events of the game.

This all seems to have happened in order to stop Apocalypse from taking control of Wolverine.

Logan willingly asked Jean to burn Apocalypse out of his mind, knowing that it would erase his memories of everything else. A heroic move to stop a villain taking over, which Jean somewhat-reluctantly agreed to.

What’s all this about Apocalypse?

Apocalypse is a major villain from the X-Men comics – you may have already seen him adapted into movie form (in the 2016 film X-Men: Apocalypse, where Oscar Isaac played the role) and TV form (he’s a big presence in the X-Men ‘97 animated series).

In the comics, Apocalypse’s real name is En Sabah Nur, and he’s one of the first mutants to have ever existed, dating back to ancient Egyptian times.

Apocalypse is often depicted as commanding four powerful Horsemen (known by the names Death, War, Famine and Pestilence), and he has an impressive list of powers including immortality and atomic manipulation.

Telepathy is on the long list of powers that Apocalypse has, which goes some way to explaining how he’s able to get in Wolverine’s head in the game.

In the universe of the Wolverine game, it’s clear that Logan has beef with Apocalypse that goes back years and years.

Logan is repeatedly addressed by the name Death, in the game, strongly implying that Wolverine was one of Apocalypse’s four horsemen at some point in the past.

Indeed, in the comics, Wolverine has filled the role of Death before, having been brainwashed into serving Apocalypse.

It seems very clear that Apocalypse is being set up as the villainous lead in the potential Wolverine game sequel, which would surely delve into more details about the character’s shared history with Logan.

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How did Sabretooth survive?

This is an easy one. Sabretooth, like Wolverine, has a healing factor that lets him recover from pretty much any injury.

So, despite the fact that Logan dropped Sabretooth off a cliff towards the end of the game, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Sabretooth walked it off.

Indeed, in the latter stages of the game, we also saw Wolverine recovering somewhat slowly from particularly bad injuries. Sabretooth did the same thing, basically!

What did the post-credits scene mean?

After a final chat between Jean and the memory-wiped Logan, the credits roll. But, this being a Marvel joint, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that there’s one more scene waiting at the end of the credits.

In this scene, Sabretooth’s survival is confirmed, and Logan’s hairy frenemy is shown finding an old tomb. He followed Apocalypse’s voice to the source, finding a glowing tombstone and – seemingly – the man himself, glowing eyes and all.

Sabretooth speaks directly to Apocalypse in this scene, with the ancient big bad forming an alliance with Sabretooth.

At the very end of the chat, Sabretooth smiles as "Death’s turn is over… now is the time for War".

The meaning here seems to be that, yes, Apocalypse is back. He’s taken physical form and recruited Sabretooth to be one of his horsemen.

We’d assume they’ll both be back in the sequel to Wolverine, should such a game be announced, to cause untold havoc for our heroes to deal with. Apocalypse, as his name suggests, is normally aiming to end the world and/or conquer it. The stakes will be ramping up, then, we assume.

Is there a secret ending?

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Yes, Wolverine does have a secret ending. It unlocks after you complete the final Nightmare Trial, which is linked to the wooden bird that Jean gave to Logan in the final scene of the main story.

In Logan’s cabin, interact with the wooden bird on the shelf to trigger the final trial. When you’ve completed it, Logan will walk out of the cabin into one final scene. Or, if you’re not a fan of the trials, you can watch the scene above.

The scene shows Logan walking through the wilderness towards his former home, where he lived with Jean 75 years ago. As he walks, following the game’s infamous scent trail, Jean speaks to him telepathically.

Jean’s narration recalls that she originally met Logan in the 1800s, and that she first met Logan when he was in a dark place (this links back to the Shinigami storyline from the Japan part of the game).

Jean remembers that she burnt every trace of Death out of Logan’s mind and went on to live a life with him, although she notes that she did die a few times along the way. But when she got resurrected, Logan always picked up her scent.

At the very end of the scene, Jean invites Logan into the house, and he accepts. This seems to imply that their relationship is on the mend once again, even if he can’t remember large chunks of it.

If the game ever does get a sequel, we’ll be right there with you to see where these storylines go next!

Read more on Marvel's Wolverine:

• Wolverine review - our final verdict
• Why isn't Wolverine open world?
• How long is Wolverine?
• Why they changed Wolverine's healing factor
• Does Wolverine have New Game Plus?
• Wolverine mission list - all chapters
• Wolverine soundtrack
• Wolverine cast - full voice actors list
• Wolverine suits - all the skins
• Wolverine trophy guide
• Wolverine codes - combinations for all locked doors

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