It’s been a long wait, but on Wednesday, Insomniac finally let us see its take on Wolverine properly in action. During Sony’s most recent State of Play, the studio dropped an extended gameplay trailer that leans hard into the character’s nastier instincts: claw strikes, blood spatters, and some legitimately grisly kills that make clear this won’t be a family-friendly romp through Manhattan. The game is slated as a PS5 exclusive with a fall 2026 release window.

If you squint, the trailer reads like the studio’s Spider-Man DNA stretched and twisted into something meaner. There are set pieces in neon-soaked Tokyo, gritty slices of Madripoor, and wild, snowy expanses of Canada — a globe-trotting beat that suggests Insomniac wants Wolverine to feel cinematic but brutal. The footage alternates between quiet, moody shots of Logan nursing wounds and straight-up combat montages where claws tear through flesh, limbs, and metal. It’s a deliberate tonal shift from the punchy, parkour-heavy Spider-Man games and it’s refreshing to see a developer lean into a character’s darker comics roots rather than neutralize them.

Insomniac’s short synopsis that accompanied the trailer says it plainly: “Become a living weapon. As he searches for answers about his past, Wolverine will do whatever it takes — unleashing brutal claw combat, violent rage, and relentless determination — to cut through the mystery of the man he used to be.” That sentence isn’t marketing theater; the trailer backs it up with a combat system that looks designed to reward savage improvisation and messy finishes, while also promising narrative stakes tied to Logan’s memory and identity.

A quick bit of production context: Wolverine was first teased in 2021 alongside Spider-Man 2, when Insomniac said the project was still very early. The silence after that announcement was interrupted in 2023 by a massive leak after Insomniac suffered a cyberattack, which dumped early footage and project files into the wild. That leak made the game feel at once more tangible and painfully vulnerable — fans had seen pieces, but they were unfinished and scattered. This trailer feels like a reset: polished, intentional, and emphatic about what the team wants the game to be.

A few things to watch for in the footage. First, Insomniac appears to be leaning on a gore and “damage” system that’s not just cosmetic: Wolverine’s clothes and body show blood, attacks produce visceral, lingering effects, and enemies react in ways that suggest a more simulation-minded approach to melee than in a lot of modern action games. Second, the trailer drops several recognizable names from the X-universe — Mystique shows up, Omega Red looks menacing, and there’s a hint of Sentinels and other classic X-Men antagonists — which signals this is a game comfortably rooted in comic-book lore rather than a loose inspiration. And third, Insomniac announced Liam McIntyre as the actor handling Logan’s motion capture and voice — a casting choice that already signals a gruffer, more weathered Logan compared with some previous screen incarnations.

That tonal choice is a smart commercial gamble. Insomniac’s Spider-Man trilogy proved the studio can make big, polished, character-driven open-action games; Wolverine lets them apply those chops to a more R-rated, revenge-minded fantasy. There’s a market for cinematic, adult superhero stories — both in comics and games — and Wolverine’s power set (healing factor, claws, berserker moments) naturally lends itself to mechanics that can feel satisfying on a tactile level. If Insomniac marries that with the narrative muscle their Spider-Man games showed, this could be one of the year’s more interesting character-driven blockbusters come 2026.

Of course, trailers lie in gentle ways — they show the highlights and hide the rough edges. We don’t yet know the structure of the game (fully open world? semi-open hubs?), how large or deep the RPG-ish progression will be, or how Insomniac will balance spectacle with player agency. The studio did tease that more will arrive in spring 2026, which suggests we’ll get a deeper gameplay dive and possibly a clearer sense of scope then. For now, what we have is a statement of intent: Insomniac wants Wolverine to feel brutal, consequential, and unmistakably Logan.

Why it matters beyond fandom: Wolverine is a test of whether Insomniac can apply its blockbuster design to a very different emotional register. The Spider-Man games were about city-as-stage, youthful heroism, and spectacle. Wolverine is about trauma, memory, and the messy moral calculus of a character built to do harm and heal from it. That thematic pivot could make for a remarkably different kind of superhero game — one less about swinging through skylines and more about surviving the cost of violence. If Insomniac pulls that off, it won’t just be another licensed hit; it could expand what a big-budget superhero experience can look and feel like.

Bottom line: the trailer delivers on the one thing fans have been curious about for years — whether Insomniac would give Wolverine the tonal and mechanical fidelity he deserves. The answer, at least from this first look, appears to be yes: blood, claws, and a story that wants to be messy. We’ll get more details in the months ahead, but for now, Insomniac has reclaimed the narrative and the headlines — and Logan looks ready to do what he does best.