More than 25 years after Hugh Jackman first portrayed the character, another Australian actor is stepping into the yellow armour of one of Marvel’s most violent and most popular heroes.

Liam McIntyre, 44, stars in Sony’s upcoming video game Marvel’s Wolverine, developed by Insomniac Games, creators of three highly acclaimed Spider-Man games.

This new take on the character is bloody and action-packed, but has a complex emotional narrative at its core.

Set in a world where the X-Men don’t exist, and few people are even aware there are super-powered mutants among them, the game puts Logan — a practically indestructible mutant with retractable claws, traumatised by flashes of a past he can’t remember — in a power struggle between human and mutant factions who each want to eradicate the other’s species.

While there’s plenty of screaming and growling from McIntyre, his portrayal is more grounded and open than most. Still, as the character remains canonically Canadian, it begs the question; why do we keep seeing Australians in the role?

“Australians don’t have a lot of self-importance. Tall poppy syndrome, help your mates out, that sort of thing,” said Mcintyre, in Melbourne to promote the game.

“Wolverine is an unassuming, get-things-done kind of gruff, rugged [character]. I think his ethos aligns with what a lot of Australians view as some of the best qualities about ourselves. Maybe through that worldview, Australians are like, ‘I kind of think I get this guy’.”

Despite Wolverine being a mutant, many stories feature him as a relatable, sympathetic character constantly under pressure. His abilities give him a responsibility to help people, but his powers also make him a liability. His lethality and animal-like instincts frequently open him up to manipulation from villains, and he’s only too aware of the possibility he could hurt the people he cares about.

In the game, Logan leaps around the screen tearing enemies apart, with consecutive kills filling a rage meter that unlocks even quicker and more violent attacks, and lets him shrug off damage. But we also see the character in quieter situations, struggling to understand his purpose.

“A lot of superheroes have special powers, they’re doing special things and saving people, whereas it’s almost a burden for Logan. He’s most useful when he’s a weapon, that’s when he can enact the most change. But the way that he enacts that change takes a heavy toll on him,” McIntyre said.

“He’s not necessarily excited to go out and save the world. He doesn’t want fanfare. He doesn’t want to get his name up in lights as a hero.”

McIntyre, born in Adelaide, has been based in the US since he was cast in the lead role of the Spartacus TV series in 2012. Since then, he’s had brushes with super-heroism in The Flash TV show and an animated Justice League feature, and he’s had success in video games as JD Fenix in the Gears of War series. But his latest role feels particularly special because he’s a long-time fan of Wolverine, and he’s still adjusting to seeing his face on the character.

At a preview event for the game at Marvel Stadium, the signboards and screens around the ground were all lit up with promotional images of the character. Sony has introduced special edition PlayStation 5 consoles with Wolverine printed on them. And at Disney’s recent D23 event in California, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige introduced a look at the game on stage.

“He pointed straight at my face! He might not have known that, but I mean, even tangentially, that’s just the wildest,” McIntyre said.

“I was watching X-Men: The Animated Series as a 13-year-old thinking, ‘That Wolverine dude is cool.’ And now I’m here. There are these moments in your life where you’re just like, I can’t believe that guy became this guy. Me. It seems impossible.”

Acting for blockbuster video games is no longer necessarily just about providing your voice and face. In addition to sound booth work, McIntyre spent four years off-and-on recording performance capture — which minutely tracks facial as well as whole-body movements — alongside stunt people and a core group of co-stars portraying mutants Sabretooth, Mystique and Jean Grey, who he says have all become friends.

But it was performing opposite prolific video game actor Troy Baker, who McIntyre has known for a long time, that he cites as a highlight of the process.

“To work with someone who is that good is such a joy. He’s so in the moment, so fresh ... You don’t get many jobs like this in a career, where you really feel like everybody’s trying to make something truly special.”

Releasing on September 15, the game comes at a time when Marvel’s also beginning to pull the X-Men and mutants into its big screen efforts. A key character featured in the game was also just introduced to the Marvel Cinematic Universe in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Troy Baker’s character in the game is Nathaniel Essex, who in the comics becomes the villain Mister Sinister, who was just announced at D23 as heading to the MCU portrayed by Adam Driver.

While Insomniac could not have known any of this during development, the game’s senior project director Jess Reiner-Reed said that these characters have decades of history, and that fans are happy to see multiple versions of them at once as long as the stories are compelling and ring true.

“Having exposure around all these different characters only enriches the universe. We can take inspiration from the movies and TV shows, and they take some inspiration from us,” she said, referring to the well-documented impact of the Spider-Man video games on Brand New Day’s choreography and effects.

“Audiences trust the care we put into these uniquely Insomniac stories, and they can trust that we’re going to do the same thing with Wolverine.”

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