Insomniac Games has been releasing plenty of highly regarded games for the PlayStation platform over the last couple of years. Marvel’s Spider-Man was a huge success back in 2018, and the talented studio followed this up with more recent releases like Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Rachet and Clank: Rift Apart. Last year, during a PlayStation Showcase presentation, it was revealed that Insomniac is now working on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, as well as the surprise reveal of Marvel’s Wolverine. It was previously believed that Marvel’s Wolverine would be farther away from release as it was still in early development. However, Microsoft believes that the Marvel game could come out as early as 2023.
While Insomniac revealed both Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and Marvel’s Wolverine at the same event, it gave Spider-Man 2 a release window of 2023. However, no release year was provided for Wolverine. The studio later said that the game was in “very early development.” With that in mind, it was natural for players to assume that the studio was focused on developing Spider-Man 2 for its 2023 release while Wolverine would still be a few years away. Earlier this week, Insomniac even responded to a fan on Twitter to say that development on Spider-Man 2 is progressing smoothly and that the game should still be on track for its release next year.
So, why does Microsoft believe that Wolverine is coming out sooner than Insomniac has stated? The news comes as part of a regulatory filing that was published by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). The CMA has been looking through Microsoft’s potential acquisition of Activision Blizzard, and this has involved Microsoft trying to make its case as to why Sony Interactive Entertainment will still hold a dominant position in the video game market, even without access to Activision Blizzard games like the Call of Duty franchise.
The argument for that comes down to exclusive titles that draw players to the PlayStation platform. Tech4Gamers spotted a statement within the regulatory filing in which Microsoft discusses this.
“PlayStation also has a spate of first- and third-party exclusive titles lined up for launch in 2023, including Spider–Man 2, Wolverine, Horizon, Final Fantasy XVI, and Forspoken.”
At the moment, it’s hard to say whether Microsoft has any concrete knowledge about the development situation going on at Insomniac. There is also the possibility that the Xbox platform holder is simply trying to emphasize its own point about the number of exclusive titles that the PlayStation platform will still have going forward.
When speaking about the development of Wolverine last year, Insomniac revealed only a few key details. The game will be led by Brian Horton and Cameron Christian as its directors. The team says the game will have an “emotional narrative and cutting-edge gameplay.”
