As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Marvel’s Wolverine lost its creative director, Brian Horton, earlier this year. Horton was named to be helming that project in 2021.
Video Games Chronicle’s source, Game File’s Stephen Totilo, claims that Horton left the project because of creative decisions this summer. However, the second half of this new suggests that it’s about more than Insomniac just moving around the deck chairs for Marvel’s Wolverine.
Horton is now in Microsoft’s own game studio, The Initiative. He’s now working with some of his former peers from Crystal Dynamics to work on the reboot of Perfect Dark.
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While Totilo did not do so much as hint at this, it seems likely that Horton was laid off by Sony, for him to have ended up at rival Microsoft. It is possible that he resigned of his own volition, but it may have still been a situation where if he didn’t choose to do it, the decision would have been made for him.
As for Marvel’s Wolverine, that project is now led by Marcus Smith as creative director, and Mike Daly as game director. Smith and Daly were heads at Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Daly also replaced another prior game director in Cameron Christian. Totilo reports that Christian is still in Insomniac in a different role.
We don’t think this news suggests that development is doing particularly better or worse for either Marvel’s Wolverine or Perfect Dark. This feels like an entirely unnecessary moving around of talent, that’s only happening because these companies are struggling to maintain their profits, and subsequently, their stability.
When we reported on layoffs this year, we would often wish the developers would find placement back in the job industry. Horton was fortunate enough to have gotten there, and he has our congratulations.
But this whole situation is very indicting of how Sony, and perhaps Insomniac, has managed their projects and efforts to maintain their success. Microsoft has certainly made serious mistakes too, but for Horton, it was clearly unnecessary for him to have gone through this.
We are certain both projects will do well, as Insomniac’s reputation is well earned. Microsoft, for their part, has rebuffed skeptics, when they showed their Perfect Dark gameplay trailer in this year’s Xbox Games Showcase.
These personnel changes probably also means that both games will take a little longer. We’ve seen every game that was made during the pandemic ended up this way. Hopefully, Horton’s influence will benefit both projects in the end.
