Marvel's Wolverine launches Sept 16 with 60fps ray tracing, New Game Plus, and a world without the X-Men, Insomniac confirms

In an interview with IGN, senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed said the team wanted to make 60fps with ray tracing the default mode on the base PS5, something the studio has not previously offered in its Marvel games. "From early on in development, we knew we wanted to make this 60fps, working on the base PS5 in performance mode," Reiner-Reed said. "And we've definitely been able to accomplish that. The game feels super smooth." Insomniac's head of technology Mike Fitzgerald added that the studio built the game around that target, calling it "the default mode for the first time for us in one of our games."

Unlike Marvel's Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2, Wolverine will launch with New Game Plus, allowing players to restart with their upgrades and unlocked suits. Reiner-Reed told IGN that New Game Plus includes "adaptations" that are only available in that mode, which Fitzgerald said can increase difficulty or make Wolverine "much more powerful and aggressive." The game also includes Mission Replay, letting players revisit any mission for collectibles, along with whiskey bottles that act as power-ups and material crates used to unlock suits.

Insomniac also introduced a side activity called Nightmare Doors, which Reiner-Reed described as a "story-driven adventure" where Logan uncovers mysteries of his past. In these trials, players confront "manifestations of the horrible things happening in Logan's mind." Both features were detailed in separate interviews with IGN.

The studio also addressed why Logan's suit regenerates after combat. Fitzgerald said there are "practicalities" to the decision, noting, "You can't play through most of the game wearing just shredded rags on his body." He said the team invested heavily in showing damage progression on suits and enemies, with blood particles that realistically splatter and wash off in water. Reiner-Reed added that early on, clothes stayed shredded too long, making players feel less powerful, and the team found a balance between a cinematic look and gameplay clarity.

Regarding the absence of the X-Men, narrative director Walt Williams explained in the same IGN interview that the story starts with Logan as a former member of the mutant black ops unit Team X, before the X-Men exist. "We wanted to bring players back to that mindset that these are characters who exist on the outside," Williams said. He said mutants in this world do not have a safe place like the X-Mansion, and Logan's point of view was ideal for showing that "existence for a mutant is not safe. It's hard. It's scary."

Marvel's Wolverine launches exclusively on PS5 on September 16 and will be "fully playable" on disc. The game's performance mode is set as the default, according to Insomniac.