Credit: Marvel StudiosWolverine is one of the most violent Marvel characters. The iconic X-Men mutant is widely known for unleashing brutality and rage upon his enemies — you need only pick up one of his countless comics to see just how feral he can be. But even throughout his earlier live-action appearances, it’s plain to see just how violent he is, even without the blood and guts.
Wolverine Won’t Be R-Rated If He Appears in Doomsday
Wolverine, played by Hugh Jackman, was essentially “de-clawed” in his first six main X-Men outings (2000’s X-Men, X2, The Last Stand, Days of Future Past, X-Men Origins, and The Wolverine). It wasn’t until 2017’s Logan, the Fox franchise’s first-ever R rating, that audiences finally got to see the character as he was always intended to be: brutal and bloody.
Jackman returned as another violent version of the character in 2024’s Deadpool & Wolverine, which became the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s first R-rated film. But despite that film’s huge success ($1.338 billion worldwide), his future on the big screen is unknown.
Though he’s rumored to appear in Avengers: Doomsday, the chances are that, if he does, he will be the less graphic version from those earlier X-Men films, seeing as the upcoming film is not R-rated. According to MyTimeToShineHello and reported by Comic Book Movie, Wolverine will face off against Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man in the film’s opening sequence.
Related: All 4 ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Movies Ranked From Worst To Best
Wolverine Will Return… in Other Marvel Media
Fortunately, the beloved X-Men character will return in several new Marvel projects that include the ongoing comics and the second season of the animated revival series X-Men ’97, which premieres on Disney+ on July 1, with Cal Dodd reprising his role as the character.
Most notably, he will return in fully R-rated form in Marvel’s Wolverine.
Developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Marvel’s Wolverine is a brutal third-person action-adventure starring the mutant superhero, in which he’s voiced by Liam McIntyre (Gears of War).
The game tells an original, self-contained story and isn’t connected to the MCU.
“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,” the synopsis reads. Watch the official gameplay trailer below:
Related: New ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Wolverine’ Actors Replace Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman
Now, a second official teaser has been released following this year’s State of Play event.
This one is a seven-minute “gameplay deep-dive” that gives us a closer look at the combat, with the character unleashing brutal violence on his enemies in true Wolverine fashion.
Related: Deadpool and Wolverine Have Already Been Recast, as Ryan Reynolds Casts Doubt Over MCU Return
Alongside that deep-dive, Insomniac has said that, while Wolverine is “a very up-close and visceral experience” and is “mature-rated,” players can turn the violence off if they want to.
“I’d be remiss not to mention we do have an accessibility feature that people can turn off the blood if that is a squeamish point to them,” creative director Marcus Smith told Eurogamer.
The game’s director Mike Daly explained:
“So one of the main things is turning off dynamic blood. We have a cool system for physics-based blood that flies out and splatters everywhere — it hits the characters, it dilutes in water and all that sort of cool stuff. Turning that off is the low-hanging fruit.”
He added: “You also do a lot of other crazy things like dismembering limbs or putting your claws through people’s heads; there are cinematic moments that have high violence in them. And for those things we can disable the dismemberment and censor the things that can’t otherwise be removed from the game easily, so the claws through the face are one of those things that we blur out.”
Whether Wolverine will return in Avengers: Doomsday remains to be seen. As we’ve said, if he does, he’s very unlikely to be violent like in Deadpool & Wolverine (especially if he’s fighting Spider-Man). But at least we’ll get to see him in all his gory glory in the new game.
Marvel’s Wolverine releases on September 15.
What option will you go for in Marvel’s Wolverine? And how would you feel about the character being watered down for a general audience if he appears in Avengers: Doomsday? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
