Insomniac Reveals Wolverine’s New Blood Tech — PS5 Gore So Real It Soaks Clothes, Snow and Even Teeth
Insomniac Games says its upcoming Wolverine game uses new blood technology that reacts dynamically with characters and the environment, including soaked surfaces, blood pools and effects on cloth, fur and even between Wolverine’s teeth.
Wolverine blood tech
During Insomniac’s behind-the-scenes footage, developers described a custom system for rendering blood that interacts with the game world. The team showed multiple examples of blood spatters landing on surfaces, staining clothing and pooling on the ground. Moreover, they demonstrated blood transferring to Wolverine’s face and getting caught between his teeth.
How the tech behaves
The footage indicates the system treats blood as a dynamic material rather than a static decal. For example, blood appears to soak into fabrics and fur, and it can change surface tint such as on snow. Developers also mentioned blood pooling as a separate effect. In addition, an animation shows Wolverine pulling claws up through an enemy’s face; one developer said she wasn’t sure if that animation might be “going too far.”
Exact developer words
Insomniac used the word “Visceral” repeatedly when describing Wolverine’s combat and presentation. Creative director Marcus Smith asked, “The question that comes up a lot to us at Insomniac Games is, ‘Are you going to make a Wolverine game that is as violent and visceral as the character in the comics?'” Later, project director Jess Reiner-Reed said, “It looks fantastic,” referring to one of the gore animations shown in the footage.
Studio history and context
Insomniac is known for family-friendly and teen-rated titles such as Ratchet and Clank and Sunset Overdrive, along with the Marvel’s Spider-Man series. Conversely, Wolverine has a long history in comics and movies of explicit violence, and the studio has acknowledged that the character’s violence is a key element of the project.
For context, Spider-Man games have included systems that avoid showing explicit deaths in some situations. For example, if Spider-Man knocks an enemy off a high surface the game can attach that NPC to a wall; a tweet highlighting that behavior was shared by a journalist covering the earlier title.
Neat touch. When Spiderman knocks enemies from lethal heights some sort of web mine sticks them to a nearby building pic.twitter.com/Gm76qqHXdo
— dannyodwyer was here (@dannyodwyer) September 8, 2018
Additionally, Sony has publicly stated that Spider-Man is not a murderer; for that coverage see this article from Vice.
Finally, the team compared part of their blood work to other recent games that used custom blood pooling effects; one example of such work is documented on this page.
Sony says Spider-Man is not a murderer
Last of Us Part 2 blood-pooling effects
Where to see the footage
Insomniac released a developer diary that shows the tech and several combat sequences. The diary includes on-camera commentary from multiple team members and gameplay clips demonstrating the blood interactions described above.
That video is the primary source for the details in this story.
