Let’s get it out of the way now: Wolverine is a fun game. Of the around 17ish hours spent completing the main story and optional trials (challenges for extra skills points and costumes), I had a blast, but that comes with limits, caveats and a bit of sour taste regarding gaming as a whole. Perhaps there’s a reason that this, of all games, has been some kind of lightning rod for the past week or so.
For the unaware, Insomniac’s Wolverine retells the origin of Marvel’s iconic hairy gruff. No X-Men in sight, no crappy version of Deadpool and certainly no Will.I.Am, thank Christ. Instead, the game opens with Logan rejoining Team X to rescue their leader, Nathaniel Essex and take on Trask Industries. Anyone clued up on Marvel lore will instantly clock where the story ends up, much in the same way that Spider-Man used Otto Octavius, but the trick here isn’t a slow descent into villainy, more a mask slipping as the extent of someone’s sinister nature unfurls. Credit to the “man in the arena” himself, as Troy Baker really nails Essex as a character.
That’s to say nothing of Liam McIntyre’s performance as Logan. From the overwhelming rage to the profound sadness that encompasses the Wolverine character, Liam’s take on the character is fantastic. Along the way, you’re joined by a few other recognisable mutants, with the relationship between Jean Grey and Logan playing a huge focal point towards the middle and later chapters. The story on offer here, and the foundations it lays for the future of mutants in this Insomniac-verse, is interesting and compelling. The graphics are also phenomenal too, even on the base PS5, but gameplay-wise, a future mutants game needs more than just what this game offers.
It’s not that the combat in Wolverine is bad. Far from it, in fact. Insomniac wisely uses the formula they crafted in Spider-Man to offer a simple set of controls with room for more equippable skills as and when you need them. Tearing through guards as Wolverine feels impactful, helped by some impressive animations, camera work, sound effects and gore, meaning you’ll spend most of the game with a grin on your face as you mulch room after room of guards, goons and god-damn annoying snipers.
The problem with the combat, and to an extent where Wolverine stands within the wider gaming industry, is with Wolverine’s moveset, at least as it’s depicted here. He’s the best he is at what he does, but what he does is often extremely one note; he either does a big stab with his claws, he does a big slice with his claws, or he does a big kick with his non-claw feet. Oh, and he does a big pounce with his claws too, we can’t forget the big pounce. Those are your basic moves in combat in this game, and you learn them almost immediately, making fights feel repetitive before long. Mash square until someone blocks, hold square to do a kick that guard breaks, press triangle to pounce onto the next one, repeat.
The real issue is with the equippable skills, as there’s only six and five of them don’t really feel flashy or truly powerful. “Erm, he slices in a circle?” “Oh, let’s give him Sagat’s Tiger Knee I guess?” “What if he concentrates real hard and makes his healing factor slightly faster?” At least there’s a Claw Drill attack that’s pretty cool, but other than that, his abilities are incredibly one dimensional, especially compared to either his Insomniac predecessor, Spider-Man, or the last Wolvie game, X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Insomniac does give Logan a parry, so at least defensively, you’ve got more options than just dodging now, but still.
To give you a more disappointing example, there’s a skill you can purchase a few levels in that lets you press jump in the middle of a combo to launch into the air. Great, that sounds like it would introduce aerial attacks and at least let you add some of your own style into combat, right? No, Logan simply does an uppercut into the air, the enemy doesn’t get launched and your follow-up is a diving attack so you can go right back to the regular attacks. It’s a pointless move and serves to demonstrate how uncreative the combat in this game is.
Again, I don’t necessarily think that a lack of combat variety and skills is fully Insomniac’s fault, considering the limitations of the character and all. Maybe they thought they could get by on gore in that respect, which does somewhat work. There’s a bit of a giddy thrill when you’re carving through enemies in rage mode, but you know in the back of your mind that it’s not properly fulfilling. Still, there is this sense that perhaps Insomniac picked Wolverine because he’s the perfect character to fit the generic third person AAA game blueprint.
Part of that is the scent trails, but then there’s the “hiding in tall grass stealth kills” that are prevalent in any action adventure game that wants to be taken semi-seriously. People might hate the handholding scent trails and all that nonsense, but Wolvie is Marvel’s most accomplished hunter. Of course he’d be able to use his hearing, smell and other senses to track targets, know where the enemy is and how to systematically take them apart. Of course he can use his claws to do the mandatory Tomb Raider/Uncharted climbing sections. He’s the perfect character for the genre conventions required. Even then though, Insomniac can’t help themselves at times, as instead of just using trails and immersing you in the character, there’s a couple of occasions where there’s both trails and objective markers. Pick a lane, guys.
It feels like I’m ragging on Wolverine a lot, and again, there are problems. We haven’t even talked about the disappointing boss fights. Even so, this is still a fun game. Even if the combat is repetitive, watching Wolverine massacre mercs is a guaranteed neuron activator. If anything, Insomniac were wise to scale back this adventure compared to Spider-Man, removing the open world to create a linear adventure instead of bloating it out with pointless side quests. Logan isn’t the guy to be making hiphop beats with Uncle Aaron.
If anything, Wolverine feels like a more old school rental game. Something you’d rent for a weekend, blast over two or three days then give it back. Worst case scenario, you’d buy it, smash it, then trade it in when you’re done. The problem is that those kinds of games are seemingly the antithesis of everything that Sony wants from their games. With their move to all digital, Sony can’t afford to release games that feel, for the lack of a better word, disposable. Either Sony needs to release games that are more than just rental/trade-in fodder, or rollback their digital-only decision.
It’s left me feeling rather complex about Wolverine, and its place within the gaming industry as a whole. A few years back, I’d probably say this was a rollicking violent romp through Marvel’s mutant backcatalogue. Today though, it feels both emblematic of modern AAA genre tropes to become something formulaic, and yet also like a throwback to more old school, one-dimensional console games. Did I enjoy it? Yeah, well enough, but it’s nowhere near as essential as Spider-Man. Get it when it’s cheaper, while you have the chance.
A PS5 key was provided by PR for the purposes of this review.
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