How this Vancouver artist helped bring Canada to life in Marvel’s Wolverine

It’s rare for Canada to play itself in games. It’s even rarer for Canada to play itself in big-budget games.

That’s why Canadians were excited to see North Vancouver featured so prominently in gameplay footage from the next PlayStation blockbuster, developer Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Wolverine. Not only does it give an oft-unseen representation of Canada in gaming, but it also pays tribute to Wolverine’s Canadian roots.

And while Insomniac is an American developer based in Burbank, California, a veteran Canadian artist has been spearheading the studio’s Canadian representation in Marvel’s Wolverine. Enter Gavin Goulden, senior art director who’s worked on the likes of Irrational’s BioShock Infinite and Insomniac’s Sunset Overdrive and Marvel’s Spider-Man series. The Halifax native now lives in Vancouver, giving him a personal connection to Canucklehead’s latest gaming adventure.

MobileSyrup sat down with Goulden to learn more about the journey to bring Canada to life in Marvel’s Wolverine, the differences of working on Spider-Man vs. Wolverine, how his art has evolved across several games and the advancement of technology, and more.

For people who might not be aware, what does your job as senior art director entail? What does that work look like on a day-to-day basis for Marvel’s Wolverine?

Gavin Goulden: My day-to-day work is really focusing on the team to make sure that we have a consistent visual style on the project. So part of that is fulfilling the player fantasy and having that in every aspect of the game. But it’s also working with a team of leads and a team of artists to make sure that we’re delivering the highest quality we possibly can.

With Marvel’s Wolverine, a lot of people are really excited because this is a Canadian character, and we get to finally see him in Canadian locations in a game of this scale. But we don’t often see that in media. It’s alluded to sometimes, like in X-Men: Origins Wolverine, there’s that fun bit, “Serve your country!” “I’m Canadian.” Or even in Deadpool and Wolverine, we see the CN Tower behind them. But Marvel’s Wolverine is the biggest example of this Canadian representation. So where did that inspiration come from? How did those whole discussions begin in terms of bringing Wolverine and Canada into the game?

Goulden: As everyone knows, Wolverine is Canadian — possibly the most famous Canadian superhero there is, though Wolverine will never call himself a hero. But we felt it was really important to have him in his home country. So when we picked Vancouver, it’s a little different than what comic fans might be used to, but we also knew that we could do Canada justice because Canada rarely gets to play itself. Vancouver, especially, doesn’t get to play itself, so usually it’ll be New York or something like that. But it’s very rare that Vancouver is Vancouver, and being able to represent that was extremely important.

And honestly, it was a cool opportunity to be able to give a place that I love justice. We did a lot of research. It’s kind of in my backyard, so it’s not a ton of research I need to do, but wanting to show like the sulphur pile, which is an iconic landmark in Vancouver… It also gave us room to have a fantastical version of Vancouver, too. And then also, as you’ve seen, getting the Squamish signs, the Sea-to-Sky Highway, and having that be a familiar yet cool Marvel experience, too.

Once you decided that Vancouver would be featured in the game, how did you decide on those specific elements, like the sulphur piles, to include?

Goulden: It was essentially, “How can we place Wolverine in a location that would support the more brutal combat?” So not wanting to be downtown and slicing through a bunch of people and causing chaos in that way. But it’s also a good segue, as you saw in the gameplay trailer, of going from a location to a motorcycle ride. So that location geographically fit the gameplay beats that we wanted to set up.

As someone who is actually not only Canadian but living in Vancouver now, what are you hoping to convey about the city or Canadiana as a whole to players? Especially Marvel fans who aren’t from Canada or aren’t familiar with Vancouver.

Goulden: Wanting to pay respect to a very beautiful location in the world. Part of it’s also breaking a stereotype. Again, since you rarely get to see the city itself or the location itself. So getting to see the authentic version of it might help maybe inspire people to come pay a visit. You can even do that drive in real life. I do it all the time. So hopefully, [we’ll] get some people in to see how beautiful it is in real life.

Is there anything that you were particularly jazzed about getting to include?

One of the Squamish signs in Marvel’s Wolverine.

Goulden: The wording on the signage, driving up the Sea-to-Sky Highway, is very authentic to British Columbia. Since the Olympics when we added the Squamish translations of the words. So having that small detail, if people can pick up on that, I feel super happy about it. It’s a very, very specific detail that is important to me. 

Looking at your job as a whole… A lot of people are very excited when they see authentic, hand-drawn art nowadays — they really respond to that human touch. What goes into making good art direction?

Goulden: A lot of it is conveying the emotion and the gameplay beats that you want in the game. So art really serves gameplay in that way, and trying to sell how you’re intended to feel in cinematics and when you’re in the fight. So in order to make that happen, we do a lot of pre-planning, a lot of concept work, colour scripts, mood boards, stuff like that, to get people all on the same page. That’s really the main thing: getting everybody looking at the same thing and wanting the same goal. So throughout the project, you have to hit all those beats, then also make sure that everything’s consistent so that one mission doesn’t look wildly different from the other and that it’s a very balanced, cohesive feeling project.

Insomniac has made three Spider-Man games now, and Wolverine inhabits the same universe, but obviously, it’s in its own pocket of it. When you’re coming into Wolverine, how did you want to differentiate that from Spider-Man, which is a similar sort of photorealistic visual style, but obviously Wolverine’s more of a gritty character. How did you go about approaching making Wolverine feel similar and something that could realistically co-exist with Spider-Man, but also be its own distinct thing?

Marvel’s Wolverine is a lot grittier than Insomniac’s Spider-Man games.

Goulden: Totally. While they share the same universe, 1048, and they are kind of based in the same world, so to speak, Wolverine is a much more gritty, brutal, violent character. The world he belongs in is violent, and he’s a violent weapon, so to speak. So that contrast between him and Spider-Man was super important. I’d also say that Spider-Man is my childhood hero, but Wolverine is the hero of my adolescence. So being able to kind of translate that in my career has been a really cool experience. Because you’re going from the “Friendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man” to the living weapon of Wolverine. And I think we showed that difference through brutal combat, being very ferocious and stuff like that is super important and a great opportunity between the two.

I imagine as an artist, as a game developer, working on these beloved Marvel characters is a little bit of a double-edged sword in the sense that on the one hand they’re very beloved, and it must be an honour to work on that. But then there’s a lot of pressure that comes with decades and decades of lore and fandom behind these characters. So when you’re approaching designing for Spider Man or Wolverine, how do you strike that balance of drawing from comics or other media, but also finding that sort of distinct “Insomniac stamp” on it?

Goulden: What we always want to do is pay respect to the past, but carve our own path into the future. There’s literally decades and decades of comics and history that we can pull inspiration from, which we do. But ultimately, we want to make our own Wolverine. We want to make our own Spider-Man. We want our take on it. And when we’re doing that, we think about, “Well, what’s important for the character?” And that’s visually, too. “What are landmarks that everybody is familiar with on character designs or locations that you’d have?” And while those still say true, our take on it can become our unique twist. So I wouldn’t necessarily say there’s a lot of pressure or anything. Really, we just want to do right by the character and by the fans that they appreciate the new take on Wolverine.

I was listening to an earlier interview you did where you were talking about Spider-Man and the unexpected amount of work that goes into all of the costumes that he has with him being such an agile character. Obviously, Wolverine’s a different character with his own distinct qualities — he’s sort of getting shred to pieces in combat, with his costume breaking and the blood and gore and all that. Were there any particular design challenges or specific things to Wolverine that you had to work around and overcome?

Wolverine vs. a Sentinel.

Goulden: I wouldn’t necessarily call them challenges; they’re kind of opportunities. But the difference between Wolverine and some of the things you would gather from the interviews from Spider-Man is that Wolverine, like you said, can get torn up. He has his healing factor where he’s healing, and that’s a new element for us, completely. Being able to carve into a character and then have it regenerate was totally new technology that we had to develop. Beyond that, it’s also body hair. [laughs] We haven’t had to render such a hairy character before, and we did it very well. Running at 60 frames per second with strand-based hair all over his body is a feat.

I actually wanted to ask about the body hair! People were really taken aback by just how detailed that was. It’s kind of a funny, full-circle moment for Insomniac because I remember there’s that great running gag in Spider-Man.

Goulden: Where he’s got three chest hairs? [laughs]

Yeah! And then you zoom in, he’s actually got three chest hairs, and now you’re doing a character —

Goulden: That has a few thousand more? [laughs]

So, I’m curious: How much work goes into the tech and design of having a lifelike, realistic body hair system?

Goulden: It’s a ton of work, and it’s between our artist and our core rendering team. Much smarter people than I am. But it’s a totally new approach to it, and it took a lot of trial and error to get it right. It’s generally new, so I can’t really get into a ton of details about it.

Playing the demo a few weeks ago at Insomniac, I really liked the different visual styles there are. When you’re going into Level 3 Rage Mode, it’s this sort of black-and-red coat of paint on the world. And even when you’re skulking around, there’s that visual element of this ephemeral blue highlight on their skeletons, which I thought was a really cool approach to “Detective Modes” in games. How did you land on how you wanted these heightened visual elements to be represented?

Wolverine: Black, White, and Blood. (Image credit: Marvel Comics/art by Adam Kubert)

Goulden: Every mode needs to be distinct and register with players immediately. But then there’s also inspiration that we take from the source. So for Rage, a lot of inspiration came from “Black, White, and Blood,” the comic run. And while we didn’t go literally with that, that is the foundation of why it looks that way. So when Wolverine enters Rage, all he’s thinking of is the target, “Who am I going to fight? Who am I going to take down?” And by embracing that source, what does the gameplay need to be? We can kind of marry those two together so that the world goes black and white. It doesn’t matter. All that matters is the target.

And then for the circulatory system that you’re talking about, you’ll see red trails and stuff in Madripoor. Those are all senses. “How do you visualize Wolverine’s animalistic super senses?” And it’s we have to do it visually so that people know. Obviously, just saying that you smell something isn’t really compelling or easy to understand, so that’s sort of our translations. “How would Wolverine be able to detect a person?” He’d hear their heartbeat. “How do we visualize a heartbeat?” You show it through our ethereal kind of rendering on the character, and you have their heart pumping as you get closer to them.

I believe you’re coming up on 20 years in the industry, correct?

Goulden: I think a little over 20, actually! My very first job was doing pixel art on Motorola V300. I can barely remember it. [laughs]

That’s awesome. How has the evolution of technology over this time informed your approach to art direction in games?

Goulden: The technology changes our workflow, but at the end of the day, it’s always about heart and conveying what emotional beats are and what the gameplay beats need to be, and then using art to best sell that and make it engaging for players. So, while we’ll be able to do muscle simulations, we can render all the hair and it looks beautiful, it’s really just a tool that helps those foundational skills. So the foundation is always the same, whether it’s pixel art or super high-end rendering.

Even just looking at everything that you’ve done at Insomniac, part of what I think everyone loves about Insomniac is the sheer variety of the games that you make. You can have something that’s more cartoonish, colourful, like Sunset Overdrive or Ratchet and Clank, but then you can have something more “realistic” like Spider-Man and Wolverine. Tracing the evolution between Sunset, Spider-Man, and now Wolverine, what were some of the biggest lessons that you learned from those previous games that you’ve brought into Wolverine?

Goulden’s first game at Insomniac was 2014’s Sunset Overdrive. (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)

Goulden: That’s a great question. I think every project ends up having different challenges that you need to address. So with Wolverine, compared to something like Sunset, which is more, I would say, playful and alive — Wolverine is more grounded and brutal and realistic. And I think the lesson that I have learned is that art serves the project the most. So whatever the project needs, art is there to complement that and present it in the best way possible for players. And as I advanced from pixel artist, character artist, lead character artist, art director — that becomes more clear because it’s less about me and my team, and it’s more about the company and the project. So how does art play this big role to make the game a success?

What’s it been like to return to Canada after working at all of those studios in the U.S.?

Goulden: It’s great. I had lived in the States for, I want to say, 12 years or so. Definitely feeling homesick every time I’d come back to Vancouver — getting a tattoo worked on, usually in Squamish, actually. So every time I’d come back, it would just be a reminder of like how much I missed Vancouver. Insomniac became a remote-first company, so that was a great opportunity for me to move back. I took it, and no regrets. I love being back in Vancouver.

I also think a lot of people will be really jazzed to learn that one of the art directors at Insomniac on Wolverine is Canadian. It’s a great story.

Goulden: It’s crazy. Getting to work on Wolverine as a Canadian, and then getting to portray the place you love in that same game? It’s probably one of the proudest things I’ll ever get to do in my career, getting to show a place I love in digital form as itself. How many opportunities do you get to do that?

Marvel’s Wolverine releases exclusively on PS5 on September 15.

For more on the game, check out our full hands-on preview and interview with creative director Marcus Smith.

Image credit: PlayStation