Against Venom's last dance and Wolverine's regeneration, Insomniac's interpretations remain in a nebulous slumber

Following on from a crippling hack, Insomanic's respective spins on the incorrigible pair seem to be more elusive than Madripoor and Klyntar.

Sony’s Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, when measured upon commercial and critical metrics, wove a webbed silver lining to Sony’s dire first-party slate. Whereas God of War: Ragnarök debuted as a cross-platform exercise in effective iteration, Spider-Man 2 was designed as an intriniscally ninth-generation title - this decision sanctioned means of expedient travel and festivals of glorious particle effects. Thus, the PlayStation 5 cultivated its first killer app; one year later, however, the narrative of the game has aligned itself closer to Peter Parker’s existential struggle in the other Spider-Man 2. To date, the game has not received a single instance of story DLC, nor indication of a potential window of release. Rather, Insomniac have settled upon smaller content updates, concerned primarily with cosmetic varnishes. As its predecessor was accompanied by a triptych of tales after a mere month, there is sound cause for anxiety.

There is a direct remedy to concern, nonetheless: the studio was implicated in Sony’s mass culling of talent, wherein 8% of their staff as of February 2024 - approximately numbering 900 - were laid off. Though Spider-Man 2’s sales were fairly healthy to the naked eye, the game’s budget of $315 million severely impacted profit margins - particularly against the strenous licensing agreement between Marvel and Sony. Above, you may have noticed the projected budget of Spider-Man 3: $385 million. For instance, Spider-Man: Homecoming and Spider-Man: Far From Home combined set their studios aside $335 million; No Way Home - featuring a selection of premiere Hollywood talent - required $200 million cumulatively. Evidently, scope creeps begins as a wall crawl, before swiftly becoming an upright sprint.

However, how did these financial manuscripts become accessible? It can be attributed to a dire crime not even the Green Goblin would dare tantalise, primarily due to his respect for the free market: a ransomware attack purportrated by Rhysida, erstwhile villains behind an October 2023 campaign on the British Library. This intrusion did not simply delay their slate - rather, it unspooled private, privileged documents: non-disclosure agreeents, HR materials, and their employee’s passport scans. Creative crises aside, exploitation of this manner can demoralise a studio to its core; it is difficult to focus on the folly of entertainment against potential instances of fraud. Thus, it is entirely reasonable Insomniac’s team are taking time to evaluate, analyse, and process the ultimate scale of this violation. Crucially, in tandem with a suite of fiscal reports, sensitive data was uncovered, including:

• Early gameplay/protoypes of their upcoming Wolverine adaptation, along with trailers and voice recordings;

• A PC build of Spider-Man 2;

• A pitch of a previously unknown live-service game entitled ‘Spider-Man: The Great Web’;

• Their slate through to 2035, revealing plans to unite the X-Men; and

• A standalone Venom adventure, scheduled to arrive after Wolverine and before Spider-Man 3.

Granted, this is a summary of a few surface considerations. There is a greater wealth of content available online - however, the presence of Wolverine and Venom on the horizon are of particular interest. The former was announced in the halcyon days of 2021 with a short, yet sharp cinematic trailer, promising a gritter take on contemporary Insomniac’s sleek, bright oeuvre; the latter emerged from a short excerpt of gameplay within Spider-Man 2. Ultimately, who would not love to gnash, jump, and roar as everyone’s favourite slimy monstrosity? The enduring popularity of these figures ensures they are perpetually in vogue, however the recent, riotous financial success of Deadpool & Wolverine and Tom Hardy’s beguiling mumbling have elevated them to the forefront of Marvel storytelling.

Venom, whose story in Spider-Man 2 blended the terrestial tale of Ultimate Spider-Man with their classically alien origin.

Tenured, if not ironic fans of the Sony Universe of Spider-Man Misfits and Toys may be familiar with the running thread of multiversal shenanigans between Hardy’s Venom and Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: a You’ve Got Mail-ian romantic drama of distant connection and alien goo. When we last saw Hardy in the mainline Marvel Universe, he was swept back into the chaos of the Sony-Verse after licking a television screen. However, he left a little piece of symbiote behind, along with a t-shirt for Holland that read I Was Implicated in an Incursion, and All I Got Was This Shitty Symbiote. It is a pretty lengthy thread to leave untied, perhaps to be resolved in the upcoming Venom: The Last Dance - certifying Hardy not as the Michael Jordan of the Marvel Universe, rather the Cade Cunningham of the Sony-Verse.

Regardless, it is evident that Sony view the symbiosis of their multimedia pursuits as paramount to their shared custody of Spider-Man. However, this has eventuated in a string of failures and instances of poor timing: Kraven the Hunter featured as a primary antagonist in Spider-Man 2, designed to serve as cross-promotion for his own film that would launch concurrently with the game in October 2023 - now, the film will not arrive until December 2024. Similarly, Madame Web was designed to serve as a stopgap between Holland titles, elaborating upon his relatives’ origin stories; it became vague and muddled after drastically miscalculating their timeline. Hilariously, Morbius tried to codify a cinematic Sinister Six with an embarrasing post-credits scene, instead producing yet another monument for its hallowed hall of memes.

Evidently, the force majeure of the Insomniac hack cannot entirely forgive Sony’s disasturous handling of their canon. Though it has severely inhibited their stream of titles, Venom’s arrival in 2027 will mark three years from Hardy’s final waltz; will Venom be able to enter the centre of the comic zeitgeist again? It would be an opportune moment to seize on an aggressive power vacuum, given the uncertainty shrouding the Marvel Cinematic Universe - save for the Merc with a Mouth and the Bub with a Brood.

Wolverine vs. Omega Red, who gives your other locations +3 power if you’re winning his location in Marvel Snap.

Deadpool and Wolverine was juvenile, caked in flop sweat, and featured yet another funny voice from Channing Tatum - and a prodigious hit. Regardless of one’s tolerance for Ryan Reynolds’ unceasing patter, Hugh Jackman’s embittered pathos gave the film some measure of integrity, if in a manner requiring a cowl and a dramatic costume tear. The last major Wolverine title was a suprisingly well-crafted God of War-sian slasher, producing visceral carnage for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360; lesser consoles of the time were beset by robot rock. Indeed, X Men Origins: Wolverine may be the only tie-in video game greater than its inspirator; I dare say Insomaniac’s Wolverine could have achieved this feat, albeit in a parallel regard - due to its standalone nature. Insomniac have a canny ability to reconcile pulp silliness with genuinely gripping storytelling, ensuring their gameplay retains the cathartic, pulsating thrill of parsing a comic book. The screen shakes, boundaries blur with a touch of chromatic aberration - bosses scowl and taunt with bombast.

Instead, Wolverine will arrive in 2026 at the earliest. This will be two years into the lifespan of the PlayStation 5 Pro, and two years away from the PlayStation 6. Yes, we have to consider the looming arrival of the PlayStation 6. Leaked gameplay of Wolverine, internally regarded as I33, presents a raw, to-the-bone thriller, using the X-Men universe’s powerful iconography to ease players into Insomniac’s sensibilities. In a similar respect to the first Spider-Man, the studio will deliver a buffet of homage, as though this is their only shot at capturing this reserve of the Marvel universe. Prior to December 2023, this would be a strange comment, given their comprehensive success; now, Sony’s sentinels are on standby.