{"id":192593,"date":"2026-09-02T11:14:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/192593\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T11:14:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:14:34","slug":"how-this-vancouver-artist-helped-bring-canada-to-life-in-marvels-wolverine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/192593\/","title":{"rendered":"How this Vancouver artist helped bring Canada to life in Marvel’s Wolverine"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s rare for Canada to play itself in games<\/a>. It\u2019s even rarer for Canada to play itself in big-budget\u00a0games.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why Canadians were excited to see North Vancouver featured so prominently in gameplay footage<\/a> from the next PlayStation blockbuster, developer Insomniac Games\u2019 Marvel\u2019s Wolverine. Not only does it give an oft-unseen representation of Canada in gaming, but it also pays tribute to Wolverine\u2019s Canadian roots. (It\u2019s also not the only Canadian location players will visit, as creative director Marcus Smith teased to us.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

And while Insomniac is based in Burbank, California, a veteran Canadian artist has been spearheading the studio\u2019s Canadian representation in Marvel\u2019s Wolverine. Enter Gavin Goulden, senior art director who\u2019s worked on the likes of Irrational\u2019s BioShock Infinite and Insomniac\u2019s\u00a0Sunset Overdrive and\u00a0Marvel\u2019s Spider-Man\u00a0series. The Halifax native now lives in Vancouver, giving him a particularly strong personal connection to ol\u2019 Canucklehead\u2019s latest gaming adventure.<\/p>\n

MobileSyrup\u00a0sat down with Goulden to learn more about the journey to bring Canada to life in Marvel\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s Wolverine?<\/p>\n

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\u2019s also working with a team of leads and a team of artists to make sure that we\u2019re delivering the highest quality we possibly can.<\/p>\n

With Marvel\u2019s 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.\u00a0But we don\u2019t often see that in media. It\u2019s\u00a0alluded to sometimes, like in\u00a0X-Men: Origins Wolverine, there\u2019s that fun bit<\/a>, \u201cServe your country!\u201d \u201cI\u2019m Canadian.\u201d Or even in Deadpool and Wolverine, we see the CN Tower behind them<\/a>. But Marvel\u2019s Wolverine is the\u00a0biggest\u00a0example of this kind of Canadian representation. So where did that inspiration come from? How did those whole discussions begin in terms of bringing\u00a0Canada into the game?
\n\"Wolverine<\/p>\n

Wolverine and Jean Grey fight the Reavers by the North Vancouver sulphur piles.<\/p>\n

Goulden: As everyone knows, Wolverine is Canadian \u2014 possibly the most famous Canadian superhero there is, though\u00a0Wolverine will never call himself a hero. But\u00a0we felt it was really important to have him in his home country.\u00a0So when we picked Vancouver, it\u2019s a little different than what comic fans might be used to, but we also knew that we could do Canada justice because Canada rarely\u00a0gets to play itself. Vancouver, especially, doesn\u2019t get to play itself, so usually it\u2019ll be\u00a0New York or something like that. But it\u2019s very rare that Vancouver is Vancouver, and being able to represent that was extremely important.<\/p>\n

And honestly, it was a cool opportunity to be able to\u00a0give a place that I love justice. We\u00a0did a lot of research. It\u2019s kind of in my backyard, so it\u2019s not\u00a0a ton of research I need to do, but wanting to show like the sulphur pile, which is an iconic landmark in Vancouver\u2026 It also gave\u00a0us room to have\u00a0a fantastical version of Vancouver, too.\u00a0And then also, as you\u2019ve seen,\u00a0getting the Squamish signs, the Sea-to-Sky Highway, and having that be\u00a0a familiar yet cool Marvel experience, too.<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0It was essentially, \u201cHow can we place Wolverine in a location that would support the more brutal combat?\u201d So not wanting to be downtown and\u00a0slicing through a bunch of people and causing chaos in that way. But it\u2019s also a good segue, as you saw in the gameplay trailer, of going from a location to\u00a0a motorcycle ride. So that location geographically fit the gameplay beats that we\u00a0wanted to set up.<\/p>\n

As someone who is actually not only Canadian but living in Vancouver now,\u00a0what are you hoping to\u00a0convey about the city or Canadiana as a whole to players? Especially\u00a0Marvel fans who aren\u2019t from Canada or aren\u2019t familiar with Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0Wanting to pay respect to a very beautiful location in the world. Part of it\u2019s also breaking a stereotype. Again,\u00a0since you rarely get to see the city itself or\u00a0the location itself. So getting to see the authentic version of it might help\u00a0maybe inspire people to come pay a visit. You can even do that drive in real life. I do it all the time. So\u00a0hopefully, [we\u2019ll] get some people in to see how beautiful it is in\u00a0real life.<\/p>\n

Is there anything that you were particularly jazzed about getting to include?
\n\"Wolverine<\/p>\n

One of the Squamish signs in Marvel\u2019s Wolverine.<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0The\u00a0wording on the signage,\u00a0driving up the Sea-to-Sky Highway, is very authentic to British Columbia. Since\u00a0the\u00a0Olympics when we added\u00a0the Squamish translations of the words. So having that small detail, if people can pick up on that, I feel super happy about it. It\u2019s a very, very specific detail that is important to me.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking at your job as a whole\u2026 A lot of people are very excited when they see authentic, hand-drawn art nowadays \u2014 they really respond to that human touch. What goes into making good art direction?<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0A lot of it is conveying the emotion and\u00a0the gameplay beats that you want in the game.\u00a0So art really serves gameplay in\u00a0that way, and trying to\u00a0sell how\u00a0you\u2019re intended to feel in cinematics and when you\u2019re 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\u2019s really the main thing:\u00a0getting everybody looking at the same thing and wanting the same goal.\u00a0So throughout the project, you have to hit all those beats, then also make sure that everything\u2019s consistent so\u00a0that one mission doesn\u2019t look wildly different from the other and that it\u2019s a very balanced, cohesive feeling project.<\/p>\n

Insomniac has made three Spider-Man games now, and Wolverine inhabits the same universe, but obviously, it\u2019s in its own pocket of it. When you\u2019re coming into Wolverine, how did you want to differentiate that from Spider-Man, which\u00a0is a similar sort of photorealistic visual style, but obviously Wolverine\u2019s more of a gritty character. How\u00a0did you go\u00a0about approaching making Wolverine feel\u00a0similar and something that\u00a0could realistically\u00a0co-exist with Spider-Man, but also be its own distinct thing?
\n\"Wolverine<\/p>\n

Marvel\u2019s Wolverine is a lot grittier than Insomniac\u2019s Spider-Man games.<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0Totally. While they share the same universe, 1048,\u00a0and they are kind of based in the same world, so to speak,\u00a0Wolverine is a much more gritty, brutal, violent character. The world he belongs in is violent, and he\u2019s\u00a0a violent weapon, so to speak. So that contrast between him and Spider-Man\u00a0was super important. I\u2019d also say that Spider-Man is my childhood hero, but Wolverine is the hero of my adolescence. So being able to\u00a0kind of translate that in my career has been a really cool experience. Because you\u2019re going from the \u201cFriendly Neighbourhood Spider-Man\u201d to\u00a0the living weapon of\u00a0Wolverine.\u00a0And I think we\u00a0showed that difference\u00a0through brutal combat, being very\u00a0ferocious and stuff like that is super important and a great opportunity between the two.<\/p>\n

I imagine\u00a0as an artist, as a game developer,\u00a0working on these beloved Marvel characters is a little bit of a double-edged sword in the sense that\u00a0on the one hand they\u2019re\u00a0very beloved, and it must be an honour to work on that. But then there\u2019s a lot of pressure that comes with\u00a0decades and decades of\u00a0lore and fandom behind these characters. So\u00a0when you\u2019re approaching designing\u00a0for Spider-Man or Wolverine,\u00a0how do you strike that balance of\u00a0drawing\u00a0from comics or other media, but also\u00a0finding that sort of distinct \u201cInsomniac stamp\u201d on it?<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0What we always want to do is pay respect to the past, but carve our own path into the future. There\u2019s 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.\u00a0And when we\u2019re doing that, we think about, \u201cWell, what\u2019s important for the character?\u201d And that\u2019s\u00a0visually, too. \u201cWhat are landmarks that everybody is familiar with on\u00a0character designs or\u00a0locations that you\u2019d have?\u201d And while those still say true, our take on it can become our unique twist. So I\u00a0wouldn\u2019t necessarily say there\u2019s a lot of pressure or anything. Really, we just want to do right by the character and by\u00a0the fans that they appreciate the new take on Wolverine.<\/p>\n

I was listening to\u00a0an earlier interview you did<\/a> where you were talking about Spider-Man and the\u00a0unexpected amount of work that goes into all of the\u00a0costumes that he has with him being such an\u00a0agile character. Obviously, Wolverine\u2019s a different character\u00a0with\u00a0his own distinct qualities \u2014 he\u2019s sort of getting\u00a0shred 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?
\n\"Marvel's<\/p>\n

Wolverine vs. a Sentinel.<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0I wouldn\u2019t necessarily call them challenges; they\u2019re 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\u2019s healing, and that\u2019s\u00a0a 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\u2019s also body hair. [laughs] We haven\u2019t had to render\u00a0such a hairy character before, and we did it very well. Running at\u00a060 frames per second with\u00a0strand-based hair all over his body is a\u00a0feat.<\/p>\n

I actually wanted to ask about the body hair! People were really\u00a0taken aback by just how detailed that was. It\u2019s kind of a funny, full-circle moment for Insomniac because I remember there\u2019s that great running gag in Spider-Man.<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0Where he\u2019s got three chest hairs? [laughs]<\/p>\n

Yeah! And then you zoom in, he\u2019s actually got three chest hairs, and now you\u2019re doing a character \u2014<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0That has a few thousand more? [laughs]<\/p>\n

So, I\u2019m curious: How much work goes into the tech and design of having a\u00a0lifelike, realistic body hair system?<\/p>\n

Goulden: It\u2019s a ton of work, and it\u2019s between our artist and our core rendering team. Much smarter people than I am. But it\u2019s a totally new approach to it, and it took a lot of trial and error to get it right. It\u2019s\u00a0generally new, so I can\u2019t really get into a ton of details about it.<\/p>\n

Playing the\u00a0demo a few weeks ago at Insomniac,\u00a0I really liked the different\u00a0visual styles there are. When you\u2019re going into Level 3 Rage Mode, it\u2019s this sort of black-and-red\u00a0coat of paint on the world. And even when you\u2019re skulking around, there\u2019s that\u00a0visual element of this ephemeral blue highlight on\u00a0their skeletons, which I thought was a really cool\u00a0approach to \u201cDetective Modes\u201d in games. How did you land on how you wanted these\u00a0heightened visual elements to\u00a0be represented?
\n\"Wolverine<\/p>\n

Wolverine: Black, White, and Blood. (Image credit: Marvel Comics\/art by Adam Kubert)<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0Every mode needs to be distinct and register with players immediately. But then there\u2019s also inspiration that we take from the source.\u00a0So for Rage, a lot of inspiration came from \u201cBlack, White, and Blood,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0the comic run. And while we didn\u2019t go literally with that, that is\u00a0the foundation of\u00a0why it looks that way. So when\u00a0Wolverine enters Rage, all he\u2019s thinking of is the target, \u201cWho am I going to fight? Who am I going to take down?\u201d And by embracing that source,\u00a0what does the gameplay need to be? We can kind of marry those two together so that the world goes black and white. It doesn\u2019t matter. All that matters is the target.<\/p>\n

And then for the circulatory system that you\u2019re talking about,\u00a0you\u2019ll\u00a0see red trails and stuff in Madripoor. Those are all senses. \u201cHow do\u00a0you visualize Wolverine\u2019s animalistic super senses?\u201d And it\u2019s we have to do it visually so that people know. Obviously, just saying that you smell something isn\u2019t really compelling or easy to understand, so that\u2019s\u00a0sort of our translations. \u201cHow would Wolverine be able to detect a person?\u201d He\u2019d hear their heartbeat. \u201cHow do we visualize a heartbeat?\u201d You show it through\u00a0our ethereal kind of rendering on\u00a0the character, and you have\u00a0their heart pumping as you\u00a0get closer to them.<\/p>\n

I believe you\u2019re coming up on 20 years in the industry, correct?<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0I think a little over 20, actually! My\u00a0very first job was doing pixel art on Motorola V300.\u00a0I can barely remember it. [laughs]<\/p>\n

That\u2019s awesome. How has the evolution of technology over this time informed your approach to art direction in games?<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0The technology\u00a0changes our workflow, but at the end of the day, it\u2019s always about heart and conveying\u00a0what emotional beats are and what\u00a0the gameplay beats need to be, and then using art to best sell that\u00a0and make it engaging for players.\u00a0So, while we\u2019ll be able to do muscle simulations, we can render all the hair and it looks beautiful, it\u2019s\u00a0really just a tool that helps those foundational skills. So the foundation is always the same, whether it\u2019s pixel art or super high-end rendering.<\/p>\n

Part of what I\u00a0think everyone loves about Insomniac is the sheer variety of the games that you make. You\u00a0can have something that\u2019s more cartoonish, colourful, like\u00a0Sunset Overdrive or\u00a0Ratchet & Clank, but then you can have something more \u201crealistic\u201d like Spider-Man and Wolverine. Tracing\u00a0the evolution between\u00a0Sunset, Spider-Man, and now Wolverine, what were some of the\u00a0biggest lessons that you learned from those previous games that you\u2019ve brought into Wolverine?
\n\"Sunset<\/p>\n

Goulden\u2019s first game at Insomniac was 2014\u2019s Sunset Overdrive. (Image credit: Xbox Game Studios)<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0That\u2019s a great question. I think\u00a0every project\u00a0ends up having different challenges that you\u00a0need to address. So with Wolverine,\u00a0compared to something like Sunset, which is more, I would say,\u00a0playful and alive \u2014 Wolverine is more grounded and\u00a0brutal and realistic. And I think\u00a0the lesson that I have learned is that art serves the project the most.\u00a0So whatever the project needs, art is there to complement that and present it in the best way possible for players. And\u00a0as I advanced\u00a0from pixel artist, character artist, lead character artist, art director \u2014 that becomes more clear because it\u2019s less about me and my team, and it\u2019s more about the company and\u00a0the project. So how\u00a0does art play this big role to make the\u00a0game a success?<\/p>\n

What\u2019s it been like to return to Canada after working at all of those studios in the U.S.?<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0It\u2019s great. I\u00a0had lived in the States for, I want to say, 12 years or so. Definitely feeling homesick every time I\u2019d come back to Vancouver \u2014\u00a0getting a tattoo worked on, usually in Squamish, actually. So every time I\u2019d come back, it would just be a reminder of like how much I missed Vancouver. Insomniac became a remote-first company, so that\u00a0was a great opportunity for me to move back. I took it, and no regrets. I\u00a0love being back in Vancouver.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s a great story.<\/p>\n

Goulden:\u00a0It\u2019s crazy. Getting to\u00a0work on Wolverine as a Canadian, and then getting to portray the place you love in that same game? It\u2019s probably one of the proudest things I\u2019ll 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?<\/p>\n

Marvel\u2019s Wolverine\u00a0releases exclusively on PS5 on September 15.<\/p>\n

For more on the game, check out our full hands-on preview<\/a> and interview with creative director Marcus Smith<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Image credit: PlayStation<\/p>\n

MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s rare for Canada to play itself in games. It\u2019s even rarer for Canada to play itself in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[17,2793,60608,11150,60607,60609,95],"class_list":["post-192593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-vancouver","tag-canada","tag-gaming","tag-insomniac-games","tag-marvel","tag-playstation","tag-ps5","tag-vancouver"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}