Insomniac leak reveals Wolverine story, Sony secrets, dev pipeline, and more

Originally posted on Video Games on Sports Illustrated
By Marco Wutz | Last updated 12/19/23

It looks like Insomniac Games did not accept the ultimatum given by the group behind a recent ransomware attack on the studio, refusing to ransom a treasure trove of stolen data. In return, the group seems to have published a huge part of the robbed data, which amounts to one of the biggest games industry leaks we’ve had in recent memory.

There is now basically nothing we don’t know about the upcoming Marvel’s Wolverine game the developer is making: The entire plot, cast list, and planned release window have been leaked. In addition there is gameplay footage, a cutscene, concept art, proof of a PC build, and an entire build usable with a PS5 devkit out there – it’s a complete and devastating blow.

That’s by far not all: Insomniac’s development pipeline has been laid out bare for everyone to see as well: A speculated-on Venom spin-off from the developer’s Spider-Man series appears to be real and there’s a Spider-Man 3 being planned out as well, of course. A Spider-Man multiplayer project seemed to have been envisioned at one point, but was canceled. Another Ratchet & Clank game as well as an X-Men game are to be found on the roadmap as well.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the studio’s most recent release, is confirmed to come to PC, though a release window is not apparent.

There is a bunch of internal information about Insomniac and Sony among the leaks as well – financial details about Insomniac and its games, for instance, but also an analysis of what the Activision Blizzard acquisition by Microsoft means for Sony. Sony seems to consider the move to be a massive threat to PS+ as well as its console business, though it also concluded that a perfect game subscription service won’t ever exist due to the investment in premium content being too high and platforms being too different for a unified approach. The PlayStation maker sees a premium sales model as its best way forward.

Details on Sony’s licensing deal with Marvel have come to light as well, revealing that Insomniac has a majority of the rights for games around X-Men characters with a few exceptions until 2035. An extended roadmap included in the leaks shows that the studio wants to make the most of this exclusivity, envisioning several X-Men sequels and some multiplayer ambitions as well.

This is a truly massive leak and incredibly unfortunate for Insomniac Games and Sony.

This article first appeared on Video Games on Sports Illustrated and was syndicated with permission.

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