Insomniac Wolverine

 I'm the best at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice

There's something to be said about cultivating a reputation for quality. It's pretty much all that Sony have troubled themselves with for the last few console generations, and when you take a look at the returns it has granted them you can absolutely understand their reasoning. Countless units moved, top of console race for over half a decade now, fans beating themselves silly trying to get their hands on the new console; Sony is in a great place. And it all comes back to the way that they've secured exclusives so fine you could slice a leaf along a river bed with them. And it hasn't been this garish monopolisation move of running around and buying pretty looking games for their store, (like the bores over at Epic seem to think it's about) Sony have invested in studios, cultivated talent and homebrewed a generation's worth of classic games from loyalist studios. In doing so they've turned household name studios into absolute legends of the Industry. (Shame they refuse to do so for any indie studio out there, but I guess Sony it a bit 'elitist' in that regard.)

Now Insomniac games were by no means nobodies before the great Playstation renaissance, they has some absolute Classic Playstation franchises under their belt for years beforehand. Ratchet and Clank, Spyro, Resistance, those are the sorts of games that inspire armies of adoration from their darling fans. But even then they were just a teeny bit 'cult' in their following. Don't get me wrong, all of those series' have met with huge successes and spawned sprawling legacies to back up those success', but they weren't hitting the mainstream quite as hard as those flagships that everyone thinks of first when they think 'gaming'. Which was completely fine, of course, because back then that spot was only really reserved for the stupidly successful like Mario, Call of Duty and later Minecraft. But one Insomniac Games has always been is loyalist, and that has served them incredibly well these last few years.

Having not owned a PlayStation since the PS2, my last interaction with Insomniac's work wasn't really all that transformative for my opinion on them, considering it was 'Sunset Overdrive'. (One of only three games that Insomniac have allowed to be released on Xbox) Now I know that Sunset Overdrive has its fans out there, and I'll be the first to say that the game is beautiful and stands up even today for that regard alone, but my-oh-my I couldn't stand listening to that game for a second longer. The creator's tired to imbue the spirit of the game with the irreverent carefree unconventional chaos of inspirations like Tank Girl and... 'The Young Ones'? (I love that show) But it just never felt natural for me, more like a synthetic wannabe. I mean, how can you base the heart of your art piece around 'Counter culture' influences when your game is being paraded around by Xbox bigwigs and is flying from ever banner and advertising slot that Microsoft can afford. It spoke to a spiritual imbalance that really affected my time trying to get into the game. Still, the actual game itself was quality.

Around the time of Overdrive something was really siding into place over at Insomniac, that game alone had earned them a bigger spotlight then I remember them every really having, (which I think was simply because Microsoft was chuffed to have their talents) but they would never release another AAA game without a comparable or greater level of fanfare. Their next big console game would be the PS4's Rachet and Clank, a game which Sony rode as a system seller, followed in the next year by Marvel's Spiderman, which was a huge system seller! As they currently stand, Insomniac have reached that level of fame that I was talking about, where their games are now synonymous with the concept of  'gaming' for their sheer quality and cultural proliferation alone. (Although the millions in Sony-funded marketing did it's part to signal boost, I'll bet.)

Now, in the wake of what looks like a concerted effort to start a video game universe in order to compliment their cinematic one, Marvel and Sony seem to have definitively looked to Insomniac to be their trailblazer. (Not exclusively to Insomniac, mind. But it's pretty clear that the first-pick opportunities are arriving on their doorstep) Just think about how much of a responsibility that is, one of the world's largest and most successful entertainment franchises are putting their efforts on your door; it just goes to show you the absolute transformation which Insomniac has undergone from an already great studio into a truly legendary one. They are now the arbiters of Sony's oh-so-important Spiderman brand, and as was revealed during the last Sony event, they've just taken Wolverine under their wing too. (So comic's breakout star alongside X-men's breakout star. They sure know how to bag the best characters, huh?)

And even with that practically empty reveal trailer, which doesn't even do so much as tell us whether we'll be seeing classic short wolverine or Hugh-Jackman-inspired tall wolverine, there's not a single person out there worried about Insomniac's ability to nail this. (They've earned that trust over the years.) Wolverine has only ever seen one other game totally dedicated to him, and that was the movie tie in to that awful 'Origins' movie. At the very least that last game managed to bring the gore one would hope for from a Wolverine project. (or at least, I would hope for) Insomniac have been tight-lipped so far on the 'gore' front, although they have claimed this is going to be a mature rated game, and one that will be something closer to full length than their 'Spiderman Miles Morales' title. (So maybe gore-strewn hope abounds?)

What I hope for in this entry would be for Insomniac to do something similar to what they did with Spiderman, in that it was a story they didn't tell from the beginning. Although Wolverine's character origins aren't nearly as plundered poor as Spiderman's origins, I just think that telling the start of a heroes journey in general is overdone and devoid of opportunities for originality and pushing new storylines that take our favourite characters and put them in different lights. (Besides, which origin would they even tell? Would we go James Howlett and Alpha Flight? Does anyone other than me still remember that origin story?) That doesn't mean I'm demanding that Insomniac sit down and adapt Old Logan to their game, but that I'd prefer a Wolverine story closer to that side of the character than towards his boringly inconsistent origins. Let the lone wolf shine on his own being the unstrained murder machine that others try to stop him from being, do that and I have real optimism for what this new title can achieve.

So another notch is added to the Insomniac broach of excellence, as that once-little company swells to take on bigger and bigger challenges. They grow any more ambitious than this and we'll have to start worrying about the inevitable fall-off when greed takes over the desire to create quality. (It happens to everyone in time.) But until then we will all just marvel (hah) at a team forever redefining what it is to make a triple A game, and in some instance proving to be the great hope for lovers of single player experiences. All I wish now is that I could get genuinely excited about one day playing the game, but given the fact that the next generation consoles are about as mythical as planet Nibiru down in this sorry swamp of a county, I can't really get my hopes up. (Oh well, as least I can be excited to watch some cool second hand gameplay once the thing releases...)