Insomniac Games’ upcoming X-MEN title has been widely anticipated for years. Major leaks in 2023 first revealed plans for the studio to develop its titles as Marvel exclusives on PlayStation until 2025, with a potential release window for X-Men in 2030.
Insider Gaming has dug up some interesting job listings from Insomniac Games, which, although they don’t point directly to the X-MEN title, do suggest that a future title will feature multiple playable characters. The job listing could be alluding to a title like Marvel’s Spider-Man 3, but based on what has been leaked thus far, it seems like X-MEN could be the game they are currently ramping up and hiring for.
Multiple Playable Heroes in X-MEN?
Among the new job listings is the Staff Hero Designer position, where Insomniac is looking for someone to focus on the “combat, traversal, and 3Cs (Camera, Character, Controls) for an upcoming project.”
While it doesn’t name the game, the listing says the person must deliver the “design and execution for one or more playable characters.” In fact, it mentions “characters” plural 4 times throughout the listing.
“- The person in this role will drive the creative vision, gameplay design, and execution quality of new playable hero characters.
– Work will require hands-on, technical implementation and tuning for prototyping, iteration, and polish, as well as creative leadership and vision setting for playable characters.
– Creative leadership and primary ownership of player character systems for one or more playable characters. Accountable for the design, prototyping, iteration, and polish of hero core combat, as well as features such as movement/traversal, abilities, interactivity, progression, non-combat mechanics, allies, or game balance.”
Insomniac is rumored to have several projects in the pipeline like Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 and Marvel’s Venom, but those are likely standalone character games. The X-MEN game is the only one that should have multiple playable characters.
The role also mentions “core combat and features like traversal, abilities, non-combat mechanics, camera, and more.” These are in the same vein as other games Insomniac is known for. The game will also feature a 3rd-person perspective, same as Spider-Man and Wolverine.
“The ideal candidates are self-driven, highly technical, and extremely creative, with deep experience in leading and creating high-quality 3rd-person gameplay.”
It seems Insomniac won’t experiment much with the core gameplay mechanics. The “Ally” system still stands out, and it would be interesting to see how the X-MEN cast appears in the missions and how many of them players can control.
Enemies and Boss Combat Design
Besides the snippets on multiple playable characters, there’s another job listing for Senior Combat Designer for Enemies and Bosses. It doesn’t specify what kind of bosses or gameplay mechanics we might see, but it still confirms that there will be polished “AI enemy combatants, mini-boss characters, and large-scale boss encounters.”
Mini-bosses can often be mistaken for optional bosses, which are prevalent in open-world game design, but it’s not necessarily the case here. Mini-bosses could simply be enemies at a higher combatant level than the average goons you encounter on low-stakes missions, even in a linear game design. Regarding the enemy AI and bosses, the job listing requires the following from the ideal developer:
“- Directly implements and iterates on Enemy AI and bosses through proprietary internal tools and scripting systems.
– Writes and regularly updates clear gameplay system documentation detailing functionality and best practices for using Enemy AI across missions and levels.
– Supports Mission Designers, as needed, through best practices, training, and model encounters. May also work on combat encounters directly within Missions.
– Coordinates with other combat design staff on game-wide combat issues, including difficulty, balance, enemy differentiation, enemy introductions, etc.”
Overall, it looks quite similar to Insomniac Games’ tested formula, which has been successful in titles like Marvel’s Spider-Man. What stands out is how they’ll implement it in a multiple-hero, potentially multi-storyline setting in X-MEN. We found another job listing for a Senior Gameplay Programmer that demands “a heavy focus on enemy, boss and ally behaviors,” which further reiterates its focus on allies.
If these listings are for a different project, it will be interesting to see how Insomniac uses multiple heroes as playable characters in standalone games. Though there is still the possibility that the studio is working on more than just one game like X-MEN.
Source: Staff Hero Designer, Senior Gameplay Programmer, Senior Combat Designer
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