Marvel’s Wolverine has the most satisfying combat we have played this year, and we still could not finish it. Insomniac built brutal, weighty, fun claw fighting and then buried it under a story we did not care about, side characters we forgot mid-scene, and a relentless stream of cutscenes and stand-there-and-listen moments that keep taking the game away from you. If you are a Marvel fan who wants a Wolverine story and can forgive a game that is not very good, you will get something out of it. If you want an X-Men game, or just a good game, this is not it.
After buying our own copy, we played eight hours on PS5 on the default difficulty, did every Nightmare Trial we came across, and did not finish the story. That is unusual for us, and it is the most honest thing we can tell you about this game: we reached a point where we did not want to pick the controller back up, and we have not since.
The Combat Is the Whole Case for the Game
Swinging the claws in Marvel’s Wolverine feels exactly the way it should. Hits land with weight, the brutality is real rather than implied, and the loop of pressure, parry and Rage feels fun every single time. Insomniac understood the fantasy and delivered it. Our guides to combat basics, parrying and Rage and Berserk mode exist because this system rewards learning it.
The problem is that it is the only good part, and the game asks it to carry everything. The same satisfying loop, over and over, with nothing around it pulling its weight, wears thin in a way it would not if the story or the world gave you a reason to keep swinging. The Special Techniques add variety, but variety within the fights was never the issue. What surrounds the fights is.
The healing factor works as designed. Logan takes hits, regenerates, and keeps going, and it sits well with the fantasy of the character. Playing it, though, we kept thinking that Wolverine is better suited to a Souls-like than to this. A character who cannot die but can be worn down is a perfect fit for a game about attrition and patience. This is not that game.
The Story Kept Taking the Controller Away
We did not care about the story. Not “it was fine”; we could not make ourselves care about any of the mumbo jumbo being said to us, and the game says a great deal of it. Cutscenes arrive constantly, and between them come the moments where you stand still while characters talk at you. Every time the combat built up a rhythm, the game stopped it to explain something we had no investment in.
Two characters survive this. Logan is great: the performance, the writing for him, the way he moves through a scene. Jean Grey is cool, and she is the one supporting character we would have followed anywhere. They are what kept us going for eight hours. Everyone else is forgettable, and the villains, whose powers we have written whole guides about (Essex, Leech), never made us feel anything in the game itself.
We are avoiding story specifics entirely, so readers who want the plot fresh are safe here.
The World Is Not Really Yours
Wolverine is not really open world, and we have a guide on exactly what it is. It is a linear game with some room around the edges, and the room is not worth much. The side activities are repetitive and rarely felt worth the time, with the Nightmare Trials the exception we kept doing because they are pure combat, the thing the game does well.
More often than choosing what to do, we found ourselves swept along to the next required thing. The game has a strong opinion about where you should be, and it is not interested in yours. For a character whose entire appeal is that he answers to nobody, that is a strange choice.
Enhanced Senses, Before and After the Patch
We played both before and after update 1.001.005, which toned down the scent trails and audio cues that a lot of players said made the game too easy. It did not annoy us, but we understood the complaint completely: the game leads you by the nose, and the update only partly changes that. Our take is that this is where modern games are heading in general, toward making everything easier, and Wolverine is a clear example rather than an outlier. Our Enhanced Senses guide covers how the system works now.
Performance and Stability
These are two different questions, and Wolverine answers them differently.
Performance is good. We played in Performance mode, and it held up throughout our eight hours. It is a pretty game, well made in that regard, and Insomniac’s technical craft is not in doubt.
Stability is another story. Bugs galore. Nothing game-breaking, nothing that cost us progress, but a constant background hum of things going wrong that is baffling in a first-party game of this size. We got stuck levitating while trying to parkour up a mountain. We got bumped through a wall and ended up stuck inside a building. These happened often enough that we stopped being surprised, which is not a sentence that should describe a Sony flagship.
Boss Fights
The boss fights never rise to the level of the regular combat, because they are the regular combat. Fighting a boss felt the same as fighting any random mob, just with a much bigger health bar, and a fight that lasts several times longer without asking anything new of you stops being a climax and becomes the most repetitive stretch of the game. Our boss guides will get you through them, but do not expect them to be the highlight.
The verdict
What we loved
- Combat that feels brutal, satisfying and genuinely fun
- Logan himself: the performance and the writing for him land
- Jean Grey is the one supporting character worth the time
- A very pretty game that runs well
What we did not
- A story we could not make ourselves care about
- Constant cutscenes and stand-and-listen interruptions
- Forgettable side characters
- Boss fights that play like long versions of ordinary mob fights
- Bugs everywhere, none game-breaking, all of them baffling in a game this size
The best claws in a video game, attached to a story, a cast and a structure that kept taking the controller out of our hands. We stopped after eight hours and did not want to go back, which is the whole verdict.
Marvel’s Wolverine is a great combat system in a bad game, and we do not say that lightly about a studio whose Spider-Man games we love. Eight hours was enough to be sure: the fighting is excellent, and everything built around it made us want to stop.
Who it is for: Marvel fans who specifically want a Wolverine story and do not mind that the game around it is not very good. Who should skip it: anyone who wants an X-Men story rather than a Wolverine one, and anyone who wants a good game first and a Marvel game second. For everything we have written about it, see the Marvel’s Wolverine hub.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Marvel’s Wolverine worth buying? Only if you are a committed Marvel fan who wants a Wolverine story and can forgive a weak game around it. Its combat is genuinely excellent; the story, pacing and side characters are not.
How long did we play before reviewing? Eight hours on PS5, on the default difficulty, including every Nightmare Trial we found. We did not finish the story, and the review explains why.
Does the game have bugs? Many, in our experience, though none broke the game or cost us progress. We were stuck levitating during parkour and pushed through a wall into a building, among others.
Did the Enhanced Senses patch fix the “too easy” complaint? Partly. Update 1.001.005 tones down the scent trails and audio cues, but the game still guides you heavily. We played before and after and it did not change our overall view. A later update, 1.001.006, goes further for collectibles: per Insomniac’s patch notes, whisky bottle scent trails, material crate audio clues and Nightmare Door roots can each be switched off, though story-critical Senses still appear. Our Enhanced Senses guide has the details.
Is it open world? Not really. It is a linear game with some optional side activities, most of which we did not find worth the time.