The X-Men don't exist in Marvel's Wolverine, and while Spider-Man does, he'll only appear fleetingly in an "Easter-eggy" kind of way

"Logan actually belongs on a team called Team X."

Seeing Jean Gray in the trailer for Marvel's Wolverine yesterday, and her ability to work with Logan as an ally in combat, naturally gave rise to another question about the game: which other famous X-Men characters will we see?

But developer Insomniac squashed hopes for any formal X-Men reunions when creative director Marcus Smith told me: "The important thing, I guess, is the X-Men don't exist in our game.

"We wanted to focus on a Wolverine storyline and really build it from that character and build a world that is in a state where mutants aren't well known," he added. "They are known; they're falling victim to people who do know about them and want to destroy them.

"So at the very beginning of the game, Logan actually belongs on a team called Team X, and he has teamed up with Sabretooth, who you see in the gameplay trailer. But there are no X-Men. There will be a lot of Marvel characters that come into the storyline; so we've already shown Mystique in the earlier trailer, we've shown Sabretooth, Jean Grey in this one, and players can expect to have a lot more throughout the game."

Do those still-to-be-revealed Marvel characters include Spider-Man, the hero Insomniac has based three incredibly successful games around? Yes and no. "They do exist in the same universe and there will be some Easter-eggy sort of overlap, but there is no crossover between Spider-Man and Wolverine," Smith said.

Jean Grey was seen in yesterday's Marvel's Wolverine trailer psionically aiding Logan in battle, in some cases suspending enemies in the air so Wolverine - the player - could launch into them and drive knife-claws through their bodies and faces. Essentially, Grey assists in enabling takedowns, Marvel's Wolverine director Mike Daly explained, and this ability to manipulate the battlefield around Wolverine makes her an "important supplement" to manage enemies.

"Even outside of these moments, though, she's a capable combatant who can defend herself and take out enemies independently on the battlefield," Daly added, "and as you go through the course of the game, Logan and Jean will team up more times. In stealth, in particular, you'll be able to take advantage of some coordination between the two of you, using her telepathy to influence enemies."

You'll be able to perform this kind of mechanical buddying with other characters as well, including Mystique and Sabretooth. But with Sabretooth it'll work slightly differently.

"Logan and Sabretooth always have a little bit of a contentious relationship," Daly said, "and that manifests in combat, in their banter, if you pay attention to it. It is fun to see them playing off of each other. It's almost a competitive spirit. Jean might use her telekinesis to open up an enemy to help you take them down [but] when you're fighting with Sabretooth, it's more like you thought you got the kill and he snatches it right out of your hands just to deny you the pleasure. It is a different dynamic."

Marvel's Wolverine opened Sony's PlayStation State of Play showcase last night with a several-minute look at gameplay, and one of the talking points around the showing has been how violent it was. Marvel's Wolverine appears to be a riot of blood and gore and vicious finishing moves; tonally it has more in common with Mortal Kombat than the Spider-Man games. But as Daly and Smith told me in a separate article, Marvel's Wolverine has to be gory to be true to the comic book character.

Marvel's Wolverine is due for release exclusively on PlayStation 5 on 15th September.