"That was a problem" - Wolverine game director explains why his healing factor had to change

With its wildly successful Spider-Man series, Insomniac Games hatched a golden goose with Marvel Games. They'll be looking to repeat this trick with Wolverine’s imminent PS5 launch.

Ahead of Wolverine's release, we got the opportunity to ask one of the game's key developers about the challenges it presented – including that pesky healing factor!

Mike Daly, game director on Marvel’s Wolverine, explained at a preview event that his slash-happy new title has been in the works for years behind the scenes.

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Looking back to the origins of this adventure, Daly explained: “We started this project around the time [2020’s] Spider-Man: Miles Morales was wrapping up.

“Obviously, at that point, we'd been working with Marvel for a long time. We were constantly playing builds of Spider-Man, having feedback discussions, that sort of thing.

“Before that project wrapped up, the notion of doing another project with them was in the air, and when we thought about the world of possibilities, Wolverine really stood out.

“Insomniac really loved the character. We were excited about the gameplay possibilities of it. It's a beloved character, and so we knew it had a lot of fans who would be clamouring for such a thing. Marvel loves the character, they want to support it. So, all those things lined up, and we got started.”

Wolverine is a very different beast from Spider-Man, meaning that it wasn’t exactly a copy and paste job to drag and drop assets over to this new game.

“For sure, not drag and drop,” Daly said with a laugh. But there are development concepts that can carry over between these heroes.

In Daly’s words: “The number one lesson we took from working on the Spider-Man games is that, the more you can bring out the character in every scenario, in every interaction, in every scene, the better the game feels, the more fantasy-fulfilling it is.

“So, the number one takeaway going into Wolverine was, ‘We need to think hard about how to solve for Wolverine everywhere in the game.’

“And that led us to some fairly obvious and immediate conclusions like mature tone, like violence level, like if we wanted to set it in the same world.

“Those were requirements, because that's the only way to get to an authentic Wolverine story. That's how we felt. Marvel was totally behind us on that.”

On the topic of combat, Daly told us that “getting a configuration that was right for Wolverine started from a point of ‘there is not going to be that much in common with combat with Spider-Man’".

He continued: “As you've seen from the build, it still feels dramatically different [to Spider-Man].

“Like, how close and intimate it is, the number of enemies and attacks at once. Logan's own move set – how he attacks, and defends, and flows between enemies – all had to be built from the ground up, specifically for this game.”

One thing I noticed in my hands-on preview is that the game does really force you to fight like Logan would – there’s no ranged weapon to let you pick off enemies from afar, meaning that there’s no option but to get your claws dirty.

“That's right,” said Daly. “We had all these elements of Wolverine that we needed to evoke in combat – his healing factor, his rage, his enhanced senses, and really for each one of those, we needed to find a form that, if you were doing well, if you were taking the best actions to win the game, then you were taking the most Wolverine-y action.”

Daly went on to tell us why the game doesn’t allow Wolverine’s healing factor to automatically top up your health bar during combat. Instead, during these action moments, his healing only kicks in when you successfully complete certain moves.

Daly explained: “If his health simply regenerated over time, then you were incentivized to slow down the pace of combat, so you can get those hit points per second, keeping you alive, and that was a problem, because we need healing factor, but we can't have you slowing down the pace of combat.

“That was just an example of one of those things where we felt like we got it right, when his healing factor was super important to the game, but it incentivised aggressive play, so that you felt like Wolverine as you were making your decisions.”

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Another unique thing about Wolverine is that he’s often depicted as part of a team, whereas Spidey is more often than not a solo hero. However, the Wolverine game doesn’t include the traditional X-Men team.

Instead, Wolvie is depicted as part of an antihero-laden Team X roster that includes Mystique, Sabretooth and Nathaniel Essex (known to comic book fans as Mister Sinister, played here by the magnificent Troy Baker).

Although Team X is rooted in comic book lore, we can’t help but wonder, where did that idea come from?

Daly said: “There were a lot of reasons going into our decision making, and I'm going to have to think about that carefully so as not to reveal any plot spoilers, but when you look at Mystique and Sabretooth, these are complex characters that I think we had a lot of room to play with to give them a really distinctive personality that's nuanced.

“They're not just good guys or bad guys. They also have a history with Logan and personalities that make for good contrast. Sabretooth, in particular, you can't tell where you stand relative to him – because sometimes he's like your brother, and sometimes he's like a scorned lover who is pissed at you.

"And I think that dynamic creates a lot of drama that makes it interesting to watch how Logan's path with Team X evolves over the course of the game.”

Team X aside, were there any particular comics that inspired the game, for the avid readers out there?

“We tried to put everything on the table,” Daly noted, ‘And then we crafted an original story, knowing what the possibilities were, bringing in the characters and the locations that helped us solve that complicated puzzle of, ‘How do we tell a really interesting story that's focused around this character?’

“So, we definitely want it to feel new and fresh, not to over-index [on references and callbacks]. Though I can say, for myself, a personal source of inspiration was the original Wolverine standalone miniseries of comics that came out in 1982.

“It features Wolverine starting out in Tallembang. He travels to Madripoor, he travels to Japan, and one of the things that I found particularly inspiring about that was his vulnerability, both emotionally and physically.

“That was an incarnation of the character that wore his heart on his sleeve, was worried about people, and came to the brink of death over and over again. It kept you on the edge of your seat, and it was just a great comic run.

“That was one that I didn't read until I started working on Wolverine, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this expands the world of Wolverine a lot more than I realised.’”

Speaking of the wider Marvel world, it feels like nice synergy that a new Wolverine game is dropping just as Jean Grey debuts in the MCU, the original X-Men cast is about to return in Avengers Doomsday, and Adam Driver has not long been cast as the big-screen Mister Sinister.

Was that a coincidence, or is it all connected behind the scenes? “I wish I could help you there,” Daly said, “but that is the sort of thing where Marvel Games are partners that we work with.

“They know, we don't necessarily need to know, and so we work together with them. And they will, from their end, make sure that the various projects that use their IP aren't going to step on each other's toes, and synergise where possible.”

Clearly, Marvel is betting big on mutants right now, and it can’t hurt that mission to have Insomniac reinvent Wolverine and reintroduce the character to fans around the world. Here's hoping he makes a good impression!

Marvel’s Wolverine launches 15 September, exclusively on PS5. You can order your copy now.

Read more:

• Marvel's Wolverine preview: Claw-some action with some cloying moments
• Marvel's Wolverine PS5 console live stock updates: Where to pre-order

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