Deadpool & Wolverine delivers on a long-awaited mutant rematch, but a video game did it first

July is officially upon us, meaning that the highly-anticipated release of Deadpool & Wolverine is less than a month away. After seven years away from the big screen, having previously seemed to retire from the role with director James Mangold’s Logan, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine is back on an ultra-violent, timeline-hopping adventure. Of course, Ryan Reynolds’ Deadpool is right by his side to get in on the fun.

As if this team-up isn’t enough to sell you on the film, though, fret not. Marvel Studios is going all-out to make the third film in the Deadpool trilogy a must-see cinematic event. Deadpool & Wolverine looks like it will be all kinds of bonkers. Not only have Multiverse variants of the two titular mutants been teased heavily, but so have appearances from other notable Marvel characters. Pyro is back following his last appearance in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand, and Cassandra Nova has been revealed as the film’s central antagonist. However, the confirmed list doesn’t stop there.

In a recent teaser for Deadpool & Wolverine, fans were treated to the re-emergence of Sabretooth, portrayed yet again by former pro wrestler Tyler Mane. He last appeared in the role in 2000’s X-Men from 20th Century Fox, and he doesn’t appear to have aged a day. He also doesn’t seem to have forgotten either of his fights with Wolverine in said film. The first ends with him running in retreat, with the second seeing him unceremoniously knocked off of the Statue of Liberty by Cyclops’ optic blast.

The trailer ends with him and Logan just about to cross claws, fulfilling a rematch fans have wanted for over two decades. In reality, though, Jackman’s Wolverine and Mane’s Sabretooth have already clashed for a third time in a video game many seem to have forgotten about.

Wolverine vs. Sabretooth III took place in 2006’s X-Men: The Official Game

As was the norm in the 2000s, X-Men: The Last Stand received a tie-in video game. Aptly titled X-Men: The Official Game, this game seeks to bridge the narrative gap between X2: X-Men United and The Last Stand. Throughout the game, you’ll play as Nightcrawler, Iceman, and, of course, Wolverine. Their levels play into a larger narrative regarding William Stryker’s Sentinel program wreaking havoc following his death in X2. To make the story a bit more compelling, each playable character is given a more personal goal.

While Nightcrawler seeks inner peace from visions of Jason Stryker and Iceman tries to find his footing as an X-Man, Logan seeks out the mysteries of his past. In doing so, he’s brought face-to-face with two of his old adversaries, Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth. Unlike Deathstrike, though, you face Sabretooth twice during the Wolverine campaign. First is a simulated rematch at the Statue of Liberty in the Danger Room, and second is a real fight and their official X-Men rematch aboard the Master Mold. Sabretooth loses for the third time, falling from a great height and being impaled by a piece of rebar, left to wallow in agony as Wolverine walks away.

Is X-Men: The Official Game actually canon?

Both Jackman and Mane reprise their respective X-Men roles for X-Men: The Official Game, beating their Deadpool & Wolverine rematch to the punch by almost 20 years. But is X-Men: The Official Game actually considered canon to the Fox X-Men series? It certainly seems that way. It goes out of its way to connect the second and third X-Men films, introducing concepts like the Danger Room before they made it to the movies and explaining Nightcrawler’s disappearance in The Last Stand. It also features a host of actors from the films, even those whose characters aren’t playable.

The game honestly does better than the subsequent X-Men movies in terms of maintaining continuity. Fox notoriously played it fast-and-loose after The Last Stand. Sequences of events don’t always line up, the ages of characters change from film to film, and recasts and redesigns are abundant. Even Sabretooth himself falls victim to this practice, being revealed to be Wolverine’s brother in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, where actor Liev Schreiber would replace Mane.

We’ll have to wait and see if Deadpool & Wolverine mentions Wolverine and Sabretooth’s Master Mold fight or the X-Men: The Official Game at all when the film premieres on July 26.