“Ha. Man, my career started with the responsibility of taking over for the incredible Andy Whitfield in Spartacus. I’ve read things you couldn’t believe 🙂 I just hope everyone has fun. I’m proud as hell of this game. It’s a blast.”
That was Liam McIntyre’s response on X after a player realised the Spartacus actor had been reading every brutal comment fans posted about his appearance in Marvel’s Wolverine — and had simply carried on being enthusiastic anyway. McIntyre has been publicly excitable about the role since his involvement was first announced. Some players had apparently assumed he wasn’t watching. He very much was.
The Backlash McIntyre Walked Into
Marvel’s Wolverine launched on PlayStation 5 on 15 September 2026, and the online discourse around the game had already been running hot for weeks. Insomniac Games made the decision to model the game’s version of Logan on McIntyre, the actor who voices and performance-captures the character — a choice that drew sharp criticism from a segment of the fanbase.
The objections centred on two things: that McIntyre doesn’t look enough like the “iconic” Wolverine many fans picture (shaped considerably by Hugh Jackman’s 20 years in the role), and that Insomniac’s face scan and art direction didn’t do his appearance justice in-engine. Comments on social media ranged from sceptical to genuinely cruel, with some fans arguing that the character model looked “uncanny” or simply wrong for Logan.
McIntyre’s reply draws on something real. He took over from Andy Whitfield in the Starz series Spartacus after Whitfield was diagnosed with stage IV non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Stepping into a beloved lead role mid-series, replacing an actor fans had already fallen hard for — and doing so while that actor was fighting for his life — put McIntyre in the kind of pressure cooker that game character design disputes do not come close to matching.
Insomniac’s Familiar Problem with Character Design
This is not Insomniac’s first time navigating significant backlash over the face of one of its superhero leads. The studio controversially changed Marvel’s Spider-Man’s Peter Parker design when the PS5 remaster arrived, replacing the original face model with one that more closely resembled voice actor Yuri Lowenthal. Fans who had grown attached to the PS4 version were not pleased.
The difference with Wolverine is that the criticism arrived before most players had actually touched the game. McIntyre’s performance in cutscenes, his delivery of Logan’s particular brand of bleak humour and barely-contained aggression, and whatever the game does with him physically in-engine could not be judged from screenshots alone. The Guardian’s review called his portrayal “brilliant,” crediting “exquisite character art and animation” with bringing Logan to life as a genuinely conflicted figure.
Insomniac sits in a structural trap familiar to any developer that uses actor likeness: use the actor’s face and upset fans with preconceptions; deviate from it and upset the actor. There is no version of this decision that makes everyone happy.
What Critics Said About the Game Itself
Reviews for Marvel’s Wolverine arrived broadly mixed. IGN gave the game six out of ten, describing it as “standard superhero fare” whose “slick, satisfying combat wears thin well before its conclusion.” The Guardian offered warmer words, praising McIntyre specifically while noting that the combat — “crude, boring battling” in its headline — let the experience down.
The player reaction in comments sections has been sharper than the critical reception, with some fans vocally disappointed that what they see as Insomniac’s most anticipated PS5 exclusive doesn’t break new ground. Whether that disappointment sticks once players work through the full game remains to be seen — launch-day discourse and long-term reputation have a habit of diverging significantly.
McIntyre, for his part, sounds like he already knows which way he wants to look. The tweet signed off with a promise: “I don’t know what fates are in store for us tomorrow, but I just want to say thank you everyone for this once in a lifetime opportunity.” That’s not the voice of someone losing sleep over Reddit threads.
Marvel’s Wolverine is rated M for Mature 17+ by the ESRB — a first for an Insomniac Marvel title, reflecting the game’s deliberate push into darker creative territory than the Spider-Man games. Whether the performance, the combat, and the character design land as a cohesive whole is ultimately a question players will answer for themselves. The online debate will continue either way.
