Marvel's Wolverine has no X-Men, and Spider-Man is just an Easter egg cameo

Insomniac Games has confirmed that the X-Men simply don't exist in Marvel's Wolverine — and that was a deliberate creative call. Creative director Marcus Smith told Eurogamer the studio wanted to build a Wolverine story from the ground up, set in a world where mutants aren't widely known but are already being hunted by those who do know about them.

At the start of the game, Logan is part of a unit called Team X, alongside Sabretooth. Mystique and Jean Grey also appear in the story — Grey was shown in the PlayStation State of Play trailer psionically assisting Logan in combat, suspending enemies mid-air so players can launch brutal finishing moves. Director Mike Daly explained that Grey functions as a battlefield supplement, but she can also fight independently and coordinate with Logan during stealth sections, using her telepathy to influence enemies. Sabretooth works differently — his contentious history with Logan plays out in combat too, with him liable to snatch kills right out of the player's hands just to deny them the satisfaction. As for Spider-Man, he exists in the same universe, but Smith was clear there's no real crossover — just some Easter-eggy overlap. Marvel's Wolverine launches exclusively on PS5 on 15th September.