Marvel’s Wolverine dev says it’s “darker and more brutal than you might expect from Insomniac,” and after seeing the “claws up through the face” scene the director worried was “too far,” I’m sure getting that vibe

The new Marvel’s Wolverine gameplay trailer starts off with a bloodied up Logan lifting a human-looking cyborg up and impaling it with his retractable claws, and later in the trailer he uses those claws like a fork on another cyborg’s face, going up and through the jaw and out of the top of its head. There’s lots and lots of blood, naturally.

That’s why, when I saw Insomniac senior community manager Aaron Jason Espinoza describe the game in a new PlayStation Blog as sometimes being “darker and more brutal than you might expect from Insomniac,” my first thought was: you aren’t kidding, brother!

Going off the gameplay trailer, you can definitely still tell this is from the same people that made Marvel’s Spider-Man. In Espinoza’s words, it features the same “fast, fluid, and ferocious combat; exhilarating, action-packed set pieces; robust accessibility features; and a gripping story that taps into the core tenets of one of the most compelling comic book characters of all-time.”

Still, I was genuinely shocked watching that trailer, especially the claws in face part. And apparently, even one of the developers working on the game was hesitant to put that extremely graphic image in the game.

“There’s a part in the trailer where Logan jumps down, and then he does the claws up through the face,” says project director Jess Reiner-Reed in a new behind-the-scenes video. “That one I thought, maybe was gonna be taking it too far, but I am so glad that we have it. It looks fantastic.”

It’s true, Wolverine is an extremely violent anti-hero, known for putting his giant claws to use liberally and indiscriminately. That puts Insomniac in the position of having to create some truly disturbing visuals or be forever branded cowards by comic fans, and at this point it looks like they delivered on this front.

“The question that comes up a lot to us at Insomniac Games is, ‘are you going to make a Wolverine game that is as violent, as visceral, as the character in the comics?” says creative director Marcus Smith, before showing a montage of similarly gruesome kill shots. The answer, he says through these images, is a resounding ‘yes.’

Marvel’s Wolverine is due to launch on PS5 in 2026.

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After earning an English degree from ASU, I worked as a corporate copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. I got my big break here in 2019 with a freelance news gig, and I was hired on as GamesRadar’s west coast Staff Writer in 2021. That means I’m responsible for managing the site’s western regional executive branch, AKA my home office, and writing about whatever horror game I’m too afraid to finish.