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Not a fan nor hater

I have to admit that I’m not that huge X-Men fan. Of course I know what it is about and seen some cartoons of it back in the 90s when I was a kid. But I was still more of Power Rangers, Batman and Spider-Man fan. I also have never played any X-Men or Wolverine games—only recent being Marvel’s Tokon, that had X-Men characters in it. Marvel’s Wolverine was first officially revealed back in 2021 and after that it was years of radio silence. It was September 15, 2026 when it was launched only on PS5. Early reviews told that the game was just a mediocre experience. Whatever were the critics opinion; I wanted to try it myself and see is it really that bad.

I played Marvel’s Wolverine through on PS5 Pro.

Plot

James Logan Howlett is an amnesiac, feral mutant. Logan is discovered by mutant geneticist Dr. Nathaniel Essex. Over 27 years, Logan serves in Team X under the codename “Wolverine” before leaving. Three years later, he teams up with Sabretooth and Mystique to rescue Essex from captivity. He was being captive by a scientist, Bolivar Trask, plotting to wipe out mutantkind. They manage to save Essex and get back to Essex’s Institute in Canada.

At the Essex Institute Team X engages with their scientist, Walter, who has a dormant mutant gene, to assess the danger that Trask represents. Following this meeting, Wolverine proceeds to Vancouver, following Essex’s instructions, to rescue a group of reclusive mutants who are being targeted by Trask’s Reavers with help of telepath Jean Grey. The pair collaborates to rescue the mutants from Trask’s cruel experiments and return them safely to the Institute. Jean consents to join forces with Team X. Nothing is safe from Trask; the Institute is quickly attacked by Trask’s men and the place is destroyed, and this sparks the ultimate anger in everyone.

There is something Essex wants Wolverine and Jean to get for him; an ever-mysterious Helix Engine. A machine that can—according to Essex—save the world and hyper-evolve mutants. This triggers a huge fight between good and evil and Wolverine must do whatever he can to get the Helix Engine from the bad guys.

OK, that was just maybe one fourth of the whole plot and happenings. The game was about 13 hours long so there were lots of plot points and turns. How was the overall story? Well, it was alright. Nothing too complex or hard to follow. Marvel’s Wolverine is very action-heavy which was sometimes a very movie-like experience, which comes to the next part: the gameplay.

Gameplay, controls, audio and visuals

Marvel’s Wolverine gameplay is a third-person high-paced, action-heavy, extremely brutal experience. Players play as Wolverine (Logan) and the gameplay is rather straight-forward and linear. Players go from one area to the next and literally kill every enemy on the way. Sometimes there are an AI partner with player that helps dealing the enemies. I found this to be very little actual help. The AI was at times bad and didn’t do much to help, sometimes even just standing there doing nothing. Other bad gameplay moments were the motorcycle chasing scenes. It is simply just badly designed. So much so that players don’t even have to touch the controller as the game plays itself through the part. Then comes the weird obsession of handholding the players through, bascially, everything. The worst being the blue smoke that was Wolverine’s scent ability that showed where to go… even though the game is mostly linear. Another was the sonar thing that showed where the hidden loot are. Yeah, there was very little sense of discovery as everything was literally handed to me. There are some settings that can reduce these effects. Laslty, the QTEs. They feel dated and unnecessary. I think the developer thought so, too, since mostly players don’t even need to press anything when, in the end, the QTEs are finished automatically.

There are no healing items in this game. The healing happens automatically, as Wolverine’s health is refilled slowly over time and if the health is completely depleted, then he dies. But there is a rage meter that fills as players kill enemies, when there’s enough rage meter Wolverine can revive himself after the health is gone. The rage meter also can launch a rage mode when there is enough of it. In the rage, Wolverine can kill enemies quickly and faster.

The fighting wasn’t as fluid as I would’ve it liked to be, and between the brutal fighting there are some little down times and nice moments. What comes to the difficulty level, well, I did find some parts to be too difficult for me so I had to lower the difficulty to get through those parts. The game can be very easy or it can be very difficult, if you want so. What comes to the enemies, there are many different enemy types. Some has ranged weapons, other has melee weapons and then there are various robots. All the enemies has their unique attacking style and the most important part is to parry certain attacks and other that cannot be parry to be dodged.

Wolverine has lots of moves and he can learn new ones by earning XP and leveling up. XP is gained from killing enemies and finding blue crates that are scattered around the areas. I did find the moves to be just enough. Meaning, so many games overwhelm players with tons of moves and whatnots, which I rarely even use, other than the basic moves. But in this game everything is rather tightly packed and enough.

Other upgrades are new suits and claws that gives more health and Adaptations which can be upgraded by collecting Adaptation Point. They can be aquired by collecting hidden Whiskey Bottles and completing Nightmare Door Trials. Adaptations serve as unlockable combat enhancements and abilities that elevate Wolverine’s performance. They act like DNA strands or perks, allowing players to equip and interchange them at will to tailor their unique gameplay experience.

Even though the fighting wasn’t as fluid as I would’ve liked it to be, controlling Wolverine feels good, extremely fast and snappy. Only bad thing that comes to my mind is that my thumb got tired and painful after playing little to much as the moves needs literally super fast fingers and good timing. Wolverine can do basic attacking moves, slow and fast, and then there are lots of new moves that can be aquired by upgrade system. Wolverine then has things like moves that need cooling time after using them which made me to think and plan when to use them and on which enemies. So, yeah, the game isn’t just hitting just one button to deal the enemies; there’s some fast thinking to do.

Marvel’s Wolverine is fully voice acted, the lead being acted by Liam McIntyre. Other honorable mentions are Troy Baker (Joel from The Last of Us), Krizia Bajos, and Debra Wilson. I did find the acting being good and believeable, even though sometimes a tad overacted. All the other audio were good, like the sound effects and background music. The whole audiosphere was high-quality and movie-like.

Graphically Marvel’s Wolverine shone. I played this on PS5 Pro with Fidelity Pro settings and Advanced Ray Tracing turned on. The game’s Ray Tracing looks really good and all the reflections from puddles to windows looked amazing. Areas and environments were beautiful and all the character design was lifelike. Especially when there was close-ups from the characters you could see all the fine details.

Verdict

Marvel’s Wolverine isn’t as bad as it was painted by the critics, but it isn’t as good as many says it is. Personally I would put this somehwere in the middle. I think the reason was that everyone had high hopes for the game as it was so long under development, and it is PlayStation Studio’s game. Yes, it has its flaws but I still think this was mostly a OK experience for me. Of course, as I mentioned, I’m not a huge Wolverine nor X-Men fan so I cannot comment about the details of the characters or the world. Do I recommend this game? Hmm… kinda yes. It is fully playable but many of the game mechanics let it down. I played this through in about 13 hours.

Marvel’s Wolverine is only available on PS5 (reviewed on PS5 Pro).

SCORE:

3/5

“Marvel’s Wolverine gameplay is high-paced, action-heavy, extremely brutal experience.”

RELEASE DATE: September 15, 2026
GENRE: Action / Adventure
DEVELOPER: Insomniac Games
PUBLISHER: Sony
PLATFORMS: PS5 (reviewed on PS5 Pro)

 

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