We only have sympathy for Insomniac Games. The Marvel’s Spider-Man developer has been attacked by the Rhysida ransomware gang, with the hackers obtaining 1.67 terabytes of data over 1.3 million files. Insomniac refused to pay up to prevent the information from going public and now it’s all over the internet, including personal details of their staff.
Much of the focus will be on the early footage of Marvel’s Wolverine, but even more revealing was the confirmation of the studio’s future Marvel projects. According to an internal presentation, we will get Marvel’s Venom in 2025, likely building upon what we’ve already seen in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, then Wolverine, a two-part Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 in 2027 and 2028, (with each half at full price), and finally Marvel’s X-Men in 2030.
That last project isn’t set to begin full development until mid-2025 and will likely debut on PlayStation 6, though it’s all but certain that Insomniac’s Wolverine title will introduce us to their take on the characters and hint at future storylines. But that’s not all this may be pointing towards.
Do the Marvel’s Wolverine leaks link to the MCU?
Insomniac Games and Sony are not directly linked to the Marvel Studios and the MCU, but we know the two companies are coordinating to some degree (at minimum there are MCU skins in the Spider-Man games). As such, Insomniac’s plans may give us a clue as to what Marvel Studios are cooking up behind the scenes for their take on mutant-kind.
The current future for the MCU goes as far as Avengers: The Kang Dynasty in 2026 and Avengers: Secret Wars in 2027. The whole Jonathan Majors thing may mean that’s now changing, though we still expect some kind of big MCU crossover in those years.
After this, it makes sense to pivot towards the X-Men, and we’d bet Insomniac were given a heads-up so they can synchronize their release to arrive that same year, thus capitalizing on mutual hype. So, sifting between the tea leaves, based on what’s just leaked online we’d expect the MCU X-Men movie to arrive in 2030.
This almost certainly won’t be the debut of Marvel’s mutants (especially as we already have Kamala Khan, Namor and soon Deadpool and Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine), but three years after Secret Wars makes sense for another big crossover event. Perhaps between 2028 and 2029 we’ll see Kevin Feige go back to the Phase 1 strategy of solo movies introducing X-Men members and bringing them together for a barnstorming team-up movie?
All that said, we also know that this information was correct as of Aug. 2023. With Marvel Studios currently reeling from the Jonathan Majors verdict they may decide to accelerate their plans for the X-Men. But that, at least is a big unknown.
Either way, Insomniac Games is clearly being positioned as the premiere Marvel games developer over the rest of the 2020s. If they can nail the X-Men as successfully as they have Spider-Man we’re going to be in for some truly exceptional games. In the meantime, there may yet be more information to come from this unfortunate (but very informative) hack.
Insomniac Games, you have our sympathy, but we can’t deny it’s interesting taking a peek behind the curtain.