Marvel’s Wolverine Plans to Avoid a Major Spider-Man Weakness, But Fans Say They’ve Got It All Wrong

We’re just about a month out from the launch of Marvel’s Wolverine. It’s one of the year’s most anticipated new releases, and for good reason. Insomniac has a solid track record of delivering engaging superhero action games. But that doesn’t mean the Marvel’s Spider-Man games were perfect. In fact, many fans had a pretty big complaint when it comes to playable characters in that franchise. Now, Insomniac has confirmed that it’s made a big move to try and course-correct from that past mistake. However, it just might miss the point entirely.

In addition to Logan himself, Marvel’s Wolverine trailers have confirmed we’ll see some other heavy hitters from the X-Men. Both Jean Grey and Mystique are confirmed to play some part in the game. However, in a recent interview with GameRant, Insomniac confirmed that we will not get to step into the shoes of anyone but Wolverine. Specifically, the project director told GameRant that “Wolverine is our only playable character.” This feels like an obvious attempt to avoid the “boring” pitfalls of certain Marvel’s Spider-Man segments. But not everyone is happy about it.

Marvel’s Wolverine Won’t Feature Additional Playable Characters, And That’s a Shame

For many players, Mary Jane’s stealth sections are a major low point in the Marvel’s Spider-Man games. After all, pivoting from swinging around New York as a superpowered hero to slowly walking around the city is kind of a hard sell. As one Redditor puts it, ” ‘You like web-slinging? Well what if ya couldn’t’ in hindsight wasn’t a super strong design decision.” However, Insomniac’s latest comments suggest they might’ve gone a bit overboard in trying to course-correct here.

Given how prominently Jean features in some of the Marvel’s Wolverine trailers, many assumed that she would be a second playable character. Alas, that’s apparently not the case. In fact, Insomniac doesn’t plan to let us be anyone other than Wolverine. In some ways, that makes sense. His name is in the title, so of course he’s the protagonist and core playable character. But that doesn’t mean fans wouldn’t have enjoyed the odd segment as Jean, Mystique, or other X-Men characters.

The Mary Jane sections weren’t frustrating because she wasn’t Spider-Man, specifically. They were frustrating because the mechanics were boring, with forced stealth and a lack of superpowered shenanigans compared to the rest of the game. But that wouldn’t be an issue with Jean Grey as a playable character in Marvel’s Wolverine. In fact, who wouldn’t want to take a quick pause from slashing stuff to throw things around with their mind? One Reddit user summed it up best: “People hated playing Mary Jane in Spider-Man because she’s a regular person, and I want to play Spider-Man. I would have no issue playing Jean Grey in Wolverine.” The sheer number of upvotes on this comment suggests many fans agree.

From what we’ve seen, playing as Wolverine should be a pretty good time. However, it’s notable that just making sure he’s the only playable character doesn’t actually address the main issue with MJ’s portion of Spidey’s games. For many, the forced stealth aspect in an otherwise fast-paced action game was the problem. And as previews have confirmed, Marvel’s Wolverine might not have other playable characters, but it does have stealth sections. If they’re done poorly, these could prove every bit as frustrating as MJ’s segments of Marvel’s Spider-Man. In that case, we might’ve been better off throwing things around with our minds as Jean Grey.