Insomniac’s Venom Game Won’t Have to Deal With One Marvel’s Wolverine Challenge

When it was released in 2018, Marvel’s Spider-Man delivered what many would consider the definitive Spider-Man experience, which has only improved with the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. When it comes to superhero action titles, Insomniac is perhaps the best in the game right now, and the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine has fans eagerly waiting. There’s still no hard release date since the first Marvel’s Wolverine teaser trailer dropped back in 2021.

Insomniac may have formally announced Marvel’s Wolverine, but after an unfortunate data breach late last year, the public became aware that it’s also working on a Venom game, likely spinning off from the character’s appearance in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. While these are massively exciting for fans, they represent a unique task for the developers of making engaging, challenging gameplay for characters that are practically invincible.

What Are Venom’s Weaknesses?

Venom and Wolverine are both functionally bullet-proof, with the former’s symbiote negating the damage outright and the latter’s ability to rapidly heal from damage with his advanced regenerative healing factor. But unlike Logan, Venom’s numerous symbiotic abilities come with baked in weaknesses that the devs can exploit to create a more challenging gaming experience.

Venom has always had two core weaknesses: sonics and fire. And though Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 indicates that Insomniac’s Venom doesn’t share his comic counterpart’s vulnerability to fire, sonic weaponry can still pose a serious threat to the Wicked Wall-Crawler. Enemies with Oscorp-branded sonic blasters can appear all over the city doing massive damage to the player in a way that the average street criminal just wouldn’t be able to approach.

That’s not even touching on the symbiote’s need to sustain itself. After the Tom Hardy Venom movies, the general public is very aware of the character’s reliance on phenethylamine, a chemical found in chocolate and brains. Ultimate Spider-Man fans from back in the day will remember that Venom’s health bar would suffer a constant passive draining effect. The only way to combat this was to devour enemies or even innocent bystanders. This would be a great feature to bring back for the character’s first standalone game.

How Can the Venom Game Handle Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Plot Twist?

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 left off on a huge cliffhanger regarding Carnage, a character who’s arguably more of a Venom antagonist at this point in his long history. A story featuring a Carnage takeover of New York would be a perfect plot for a potential Venom game, as symbiote enemies are naturally able to harm each other and provide additional gameplay vulnerability for the character. This does, admittedly, run the risk of repetition of plot beats in the previous game, but it may also save the team some time working on new enemy models.

How Will Insomniac Handle Marvel’s Wolverine?

Logan is a little more difficult to adapt in a video game due to the fact a central part of his mutation is his inability to die. Bullets and edged weapons mean almost nothing to his healing factor, and he doesn’t have a kryptonite style weakness to exploit.

The most important thing to remember here is that there needs to be a challenge facing players. Controlling an invincible mutant killing machine seems fun at first, but without engaging gameplay, that experience will get old fast. The devs need to find a way to ensure the players actually face a loss condition. Despite this, other teams in the past have figured out a happy medium between keeping the power fantasy of being Wolverine and maintaining a respectable difficulty curve in-game.

Insomniac Should Take Notes From The Best Wolverine Game Yet

X-Men Origins: Wolverine from Raven Software is the most successful take on Wolverine in gaming. The hack-and-slash game is based on the film of the same name and features graphic depictions of Wolverine’s combat abilities and, more importantly, his healing factor.

The game gives the player two health bars: one representing Wolverine’s exterior and his interior, respectively. Once the first bar is depleted, Logan will start taking damage to his internal organs, which will eventually put him out of commission. Getting out of combat for a few seconds would give both bars some time to regenerate, but this was probably the best take on Wolverine’s healing factor to-date. Given recent rumors that Insomniac is taking notes from Raven Software’s real-time Wolverine healing/regeneration mechanics, the health system may be making a return as well.