Marvel's Wolverine Review

Developer: Insomniac Games

Platform: PS5 (Reviewed)

Genre: Action, Adventure

Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment

Marvel’s Wolverine is the latest game from Insomniac Games – it follows an all-new story of Wolverine. You play as the enigmatic character as you try to piece together what has happened to Logan over the years. The game has a huge array of Marvel characters that play a vital role in this narrative-driven action single-player game. It’s available on PS5.

The game is a wild ride from start to finish, and the gameplay and action really lean into the chaotic nature of Wolverine and his ways. The story of his past underpins a lot of the self-discovery journey that he is on during the game. A fantastic narrative is written and is woven into this game; the array of characters really enhances the story and your journey as a player through the game.

The gameplay is a highly violent and graphic third-person close combat with Wolverine’s claws being the primary attack weapon and the cause of unlimited amounts of gore, maimings, beheadings and other gruesome deaths. Leaning into this level of violence is quite the departure from games like Spider-Man, where enemies are subdued or knocked out; this is the main stark contrast in gameplay. As Wolverine, you have a very straightforward but thoroughly enjoyable combat system of light and heavy attacks, dodges, and parries as the basic moveset. This moveset will expand and get bigger as you progress through two different skill trees: the first is a combat skill tree where you will acquire combos, combat upgrades and special attacks. The second skill tree is the mutant skill tree, which enhances Wolverine’s abilities, including combat buffs, increased damage absorption, and bigger parry and dodge windows. The skill trees will help you with hordes of enemies, including mutants, robots, and bosses. The horde-like battles seem unrelenting at times but are super satisfying, especially with the gory endings for your enemies.

You play in third-person, the camera hovering over Wolverine; the movement again is straightforward – run, jump, climb, and some ducking too. The controls are super intuitive and easy to pick up, which is a delight, as you can pick up and play, dip in and out as you want, without having to learn a huge number of controls. Like most action games, there are points where the camera’s lack of awareness of obstacles will cause you to have an obstructed view, but this is rare, though super annoying when it occurs. The level design is not an open world like Spider-Man, where the whole map is discoverable; instead, these are fairly sandboxed levels where you are guided through missions in a narrower and less open-world feel. The game uses backgrounds, a huge number of characters, and multiple locations to give the impression of being much bigger and grander than it actually is. The graphical detail of the levels, characters, and everything else in the game is meticulous. The use of colours and different terrains transports the player into multiple places and gives a truly immersive experience. The voice acting and sheer amount of characters, heroes, villains and everything in between are amazing. I loved that it is a fantastic story with lots of depth and an amazing vocal cast to bring the full cinematic experience.

Marvel’s Wolverine is locking in 60 FPS with ray tracing on by default; that includes the base PS5. Performance Mode (default) sticks to a steady 60 FPS with ray tracing running, at around 1296p internal resolution. Fidelity Mode drops to 30 FPS but sharpens things up with roughly 1800p resolution, though you lose the ray tracing options. And if you’ve got a 120Hz/VRR display, you get even more out of it: Fidelity Mode jumps to 40 FPS, while Performance Mode with VRR can swing between 60 and 70 FPS.
I did experience some graphical glitches and odd gameplay issues, like the hit-box for opening a door not working, but this was rare and didn’t detract from the game that much.

Wolverine is a chaotic and ultimately enjoyable game with an approximately 20-hour-long campaign, though this will vary depending on skill level. I found a lot of collectables, and discovering secret items came naturally while playing without feeling arduous – though I haven’t 100%’d it yet! The game has a fantastic story, and if you love Wolverine, this will be a thrilling experience. I enjoyed the all-out action and huge array of Marvel characters. The gameplay isn’t revolutionary, but it works for the game. The game does have camera angle issues at times and the odd glitch. It does suffer from some repetitive parts in the combat in certain areas where you encounter horde upon horde. I loved the use of gore and violence to match the themes in the game.

Overall: 8/10