Insomniac was the victim of one of the largest hacking initiatives, having almost 1 TB worth of data held hostage by a ransomware group that demanded a total of $2 million. As Insominiac refused to pay the ransom, the hacker group made good on their threats and released over a million files online, leaking not only personal employee information, but also contracts that Insomniac had signed with Marvel.
One of the most important flagship franchises of the gaming studio, at least when it comes to Marvel, is Spider-Man. So far, the company has made 2 separate games on the character: Spider-Man, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Spider-Man 2. However, the leaks seemed to have revealed some synergy between the game and the films, hinting at a bold new direction for the Marvel franchise when it comes to games.
Also Read: An Online Spider-Man Game Was Cancelled According to the Insomniac Leaks
Insomniac is set to produce only X-Men games until 2035
Out of the many things that were leaked by the hackers, it was also revealed that Insomniac Games was slated to produce and publish a host of X-Men-related games exclusively, from now to 2035. Given the laser focus on the X-Men IP from the film studio and the games, one can assume that this is part of a larger plan to refocus the Marvel brand to the characters it worked with best: The Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Spider-Man, the film rights of all that the brand did not know until recently (except Spider-Man, that’s still with Sony).
Even in the MCU, the focus has been largely shifting towards the mutants, given how they seem to be present in most films that have been released after Avengers: Endgame. Marvel might be trying to put forth its host of popular characters, even if it comes at the cost of the Avengers, who have been failing at the box office in recent years.
Apart from Wolverine, what other X-Men game could Insomniac produce?
According to the leak, Wolverine was just the first X-Men game in Insomniac’s quiver, with another game, simply titled X-Men, scheduled for sometime after 2030. However, X-Men offers a host of characters whose powers could serve as brilliant protagonists for a host of games that could explore all sorts of groundbreaking mechanics, as was the case with Insomniac’s first Spider-Man game.
While Wolverine would serve as a brilliant protagonist for a game, there are a host of other characters that could make amazing games. A game focused on Magneto, set in the Second World War could have some potential. Perhaps even a game set surrounding Nightcrawler could offer up some potential for ground-breaking mechanics.
Among other characters that could serve as great protagonists for video games with unique mechanics are Mystique (for something like Ubisoft’s Hitman franchise), an X-23 spin-off for the Wolverine game, or a hack-and-slash fantasy game based around Captain Avalon or Betsy Braddock. While the games may or may not reflect what is happening with the films, Insomniac has itself a very fruitful opportunity to create a series of truly breathtaking games.
