This story originally appeared on Them.
Social media screenshots and video seem to indicate that copies of the game Marvel’s Wolverine sent to countries in the Middle East included redacted and heavily altered references to Mystique’s same-sex relationship and marriage with crime boss Tyger Tiger, per a report in Kotaku.
In some of the screenshots currently circulating on social media, images of Mystique and Tyger in bridal gowns have been completely removed.
“Why did you censor Mystique's lesbian relationship in Lebanon,” one person wrote on X in response to a tweet about the game from its developer, Insomniac Games. The post came with an accompanying image showing an empty picture frame that, in other territories, includes a picture of Mystique and her wife.
The new Marvel action title is being distributed by Sony Interactive Entertainment as an exclusive for the PlayStation 5. It is not clear how many, or which countries, specifically have been impacted. Them has reached out to Sony for comment and will update if we hear back.
Another X post highlighted by Kotaku allegedly shows a censored photograph as well as a censored love letter between the two.
A video posted on Reddit further compiled instances of the alleged censored Middle Eastern version of the game, which included a redacted reference Mystique makes to “my wife.”
“In my version of the game scenes mentioning mystique and tiger censor or cut out anything mentioning their relationship, thought it was a glitch at first but as I played through I realized it wasn’t,” the Reddit post reads.
Mystique and Tyger’s love story is a central aspect of the game and even led to some fans falsely believing that Mystique was retconned to be queer. However, as pointed out by gaming website The Gamer, Mystique’s sexuality has always been fluid and has included her being married to another woman at least once. Mystique had a long-running relationship with Destiny, real name Irene Adler, and the pair are married in the Earth-616 timeline. (They were written in some early comics as gal pals with sapphic undertones.)
The two also shared their first kiss on the page in 2019.
Mystique and Tyger’s same-sex relationship is not the only queer aspect to Wolverine, either. While speaking about the love/hate relationship between Wolverine and frenemy Sabertooth — who are not brothers in the original comics — Insomniac Games narrative director Walt Williams said that Wolverine has a “yearning” for his foe, though the developer later clarified it was “platonic.”
“Logan feels that yearning and he gets scared and pulls away,” Williams said. “Sabretooth feels that yearning and it makes him hurt and want to lash out to exert that hurt outward. Hate and love are so hand in hand… you hurt me so I’m going to hurt you, and we’re still going to be linked because now the pain is shared.”
This is not the first time that a video game has been censored in some countries due to LGBTQ+ content. In 2023, pride flags were also allegedly removed from copies of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 sent to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, per GameRant.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s newsletters.
