Highlights

• X-Men Origins: Wolverine is one of the best X-Men games, known for its authentic portrayal of Wolverine and engaging gameplay.
• The game showcased Wolverine's violent side, allowing players to experience his true capabilities through brutal combat mechanics.
• X-Men Origins: Wolverine expanded on the source material, adding new elements like facing off against classic X-Men enemies.

The X-Men franchise has had no shortage of video game outings over the last few decades, but only a handful have stood the test of time. From the beloved 1990s X-Men arcade game, to the underrated X-Men Legends duology, the few truly great X-Men games have remained popular for all these years thanks to their authentic portrayals of iconic characters, and their accessible yet engaging gameplay mechanics, two features front and center of X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Released on May 1 2009 alongside the much-maligned movie of the same name, X-Men Origins: Wolverine turns 15 years old today, and it still remains one of the best X-Men games ever made. While critics weren't too keen on it at the time, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has since become a cult classic among fans, featuring the most accurate portrayal of Logan in gaming, at least so far.

X-Men Origins Set a Gold Standard for Wolverine Games

X-Men Origins Nailed The Core Essence of Wolverine

The early Fox X-Men movies were incredibly influential for their time, essentially kick-starting the superhero movie boom alongside the first Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie, but their portrayal of Wolverine left a little to be desired. Though Hugh Jackman quickly made the role his own, Wolverine in those first few X-Men movies didn't get to fully unleash his claws all that much. It wouldn't be until 2017's Logan that mainstream audiences finally got to see an uncaged Wolverine at the height of his ferocity, but there was one X-Men project that beat Logan to the punch.

Far more than a simple movie tie-in, 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine turned heads at the time for being the first on-screen project to show Wolverine in his most violent form, long before Logan would. Taking inspiration from hack-and-slash games like Devil May Cry and God of War, X-Men Origins: Wolverine sees players take control of the feral hero as he viciously carves his way through hordes of enemies, spraying copious pints of blood and viscera along the way.

From a pounce attack that sees Wolverine plunge his claws into an enemy's chest, to a grab attack that impales enemies on an environmental object, to the basic attack that spatters blood around the room, X-Men Origins: Wolverine makes great use of its gore, really showing the character's true capabilities for the first time in major media. This over-the-top gore is paired nicely with the game's Regeneration mechanic, which sees Wolverine regrow parts of his muscle and skin in real time.

Though violence isn't Wolverine's only defining trait, it is an important facet of the character, and seeing it portrayed so well in X-Men Origins: Wolverine has helped it stand out even all these years later.

X-Men Origins: Wolverine Went Far Beyond Its Source Material

While its gore and combat are what's most fondly remembered by fans all these years later, X-Men Origins: Wolverine did have a few other strengths, one of which was its willingness to expand on the source material. As every fan knows, 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie is infamously awful, and while the game of the same name follows the same general story and features a lot of the same set pieces, it also added a few moments of its own that helped to flesh out the wider X-Men universe. One of the most memorable examples is X-Men Origins: Wolverine's Sentinel mission, where players get to face off against the classic X-Men enemy type, something that the movies have still skirted around.