Popverse's top stories

• The new Street Fighter movie won't be The Dark Knight of video game movies, says director
• There's an official One Piece x Jurassic Park crossover, but only in Japan
• Marvel's Vision actor Paul Bettany says there are basically two kinds of robot story - and VisionQuest is the MCU's Frankenstein

Ever since Spider-Man hitmakers Insomniac declared they'd be making a Wolverine game, fans had one big question - how will a game handle depleting health for a character whose whole thing is a healing factor? After all, the stories upon which Marvel's Wolverine is based have seen Logan reduced to nothing more than atoms at various points over his decades of history - and while that's cool as hell on the comic book page, it makes for pretty low stakes for a video game. Fortunately, the creators of Insomniac's take on the character are only too happy to explain how they're handling an eternal healing factor.

That is, they're ditching it.

This info comes out of a DiscussingFilm interview conducted with some of the creative minds behind the game, including executive producer Eric Monacelli, narrative director Walt Williams, creative director Marcus Smith, game director Mike Daly, project director Jess Reiner-Reed, and voice/mocap actors Liam McIntyre and Krizia Bajos, who play Logan and Jean Grey, respectively. When asked to get into game mechanics specific to the character, it was Daly who revealed the comic-to-video-game change.

"Logan's healing factor has taken on different forms over the years," explained Daly, "And in one of my favorite Wolverine stories, he really does go to the brink of death like several times. In order to build a Logan that could feel vulnerable physically and make a great game, where we ended up was if Logan's damage overloads his healing factor and his heart stops, then his healing factor stops. So he can die. He's not the eternally invincible character that he is in some depictions - that's something you always have to watch out for as a player."

That said, Daly was careful to clarify that a regenerative healing factor was still at the forefront of action when players would be embodying Marvel's Most Malleable Mutant.

"In order to make the healing factor a prominent element of your strategy in battle," the game director continued, "What we did was - if you have a pool of rage built up, then that adrenaline can reboot his heart and keep you going even when your healing factor is overloaded. That's a mechanic that makes his healing factor important, but also encourages aggressive play, so that the whole time you feel like you're always pushing forward and fighting for rage. In that way, you embody the Wolverine tactics."

Insomniac's Wolverine comes to consoles September 15.

To me, my X-Men fans. Want more about Marvel's mutants? You don't need Cerebro to find what you should read next... we made a list!

• The best X-Men comics
• Every Omega-Level X-Men mutant ranked by power
• How to read the Marvel Comics' X-Men in order following the Krakoa era
• Why the Krakoan Age of X-Men was ended by Marvel
• How to watch the X-Men movies in order