Insomniac Games has all but perfected the blockbuster superhero video game experience at this point, proving with its Marvel’s Spider-Man series that it knows what fans and players want, and how to tap into that specific power fantasy. You only need to read the reports of hundreds of thousands more sales for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 in the wake of the Tom Holland-led Spider-Man: Brand New Day to understand that the people yearn for some superhero escapism and Insomniac has its hands on the purest stuff.
But what of Marvel’s Wolverine? Before today, I could’ve told you that I wasn’t quite of the studio’s trajectory here. In paring back one of the most crucial layers of their previous works – namely an open world to traverse in possibly the coolest way imaginable – does this particular brand of superhero action have staying power? After today, having got my hands on a solid couple of hours of the game, I might not have a definitive answer as to whether it’s going to work for the final product, but it’s absolutely the right choice for this character. And god does it feel good to play.
But first, some context. Our demo began at the start of the game, and sees Logan working alongside Team X – a kind of black-ops unit headed up by one Nathaniel Essex (aka Mister Sinister) and also consisting of Sabretooth and Mystique, presumably among others. As we kick off the story, Logan’s seemingly lost a good amount of his memories and he’s freshly back in the saddle after Essex takes him in, making this an almost-origin story of sorts. We’re not meeting Wolverine at his very beginning, but we’re learning about his past and getting comfortable with his skills alongside him. Classic video game amnesiac stuff, but it works.
Anyway, back to shoving my adamantium claws into dudes and racking up an industry-leading invoice for red paint. We’re in Telambang, on a rescue mission to recover Essex from the clutches of the anti-mutant, militant billionaire, Bolivar Trask. Under cover of night, I’m able to get my claws wet inside all manner of guns-for-hire types, shuffling from set pieces to combat encounters to covert ops in quick succession, most of which involve a healthy dose of stabbing, slashing and separating of limbs from bodies.
“With Marvel’s Spider-Man I think we nailed swinging, and so going into Marvel’s Wolverine we had to nail claw combat,” senior project director, Jess Reiner-Reed tells me in a 1:1 interview after the demo session. “It has to feel heavy, brutal.”
And it certainly does. Combat is, as you’d expect, fast and bloody. The fundamentals will be surprisingly familiar to anyone who’s donned the Spidey Suit – combos, finishers, dodging, parrying, all of that, but it’s much more close and personal. Wolverine doesn’t have web shooters to draw his enemies closer, so he goes to them, leaping through the fray at his next, hapless target and absolutely wailing on them with his razor-sharp claws. Aggression is the name of the game, and it’s the key to success – the more damage you can do without letting up, the more you’ll maintain your Rage meter and thus have access to even more powerful moves and some fallback healing abilities. Crucially, there’s no access to health on tap, so Logan can only claw back (sorry) vitality through Rage-induced attacks and after a battle is over.
“I think one of the specific design decisions was that Logan’s not somebody who’s gonna run from battle,” Reiner-Reed adds. “We wanted to reward the aggression, running towards enemies, so even if you’re low on health the strategy is not – oh, go hide behind a tree. That is so not Logan.”
Building your Rage meter up to its third tier unlocks some pretty gnarly critical finishers, and with enough Rage in the bank you’re granted a Last Stand mechanic that can revive Logan and prevent a game over, so Jess’ words ring true. Where Spider-Man’s combat plays into that classic superhero power fantasy I touched on up top, Wolverine’s combat feels appropriately desperate, motivating you to go in harder and faster the more you’re put on the back foot. It’s the kind of thing that you can’t really infer from gameplay videos, where it’s easy to look at combat and compare it to Peter Parker’s fisticuffs, but it’s absolutely a different beast.
Throughout this demo, I did wonder about the longevity of the core combat though, over a playtime no doubt in the double digits. It’s not that any of is bad, quite the opposite, but I’d love to know where additional depth will come in down the track, if it does. There were some new enemy types introduced as I went, from the cyborg-esque Reavers of increasing rank to Hand ninjas, and I found myself contending with the usual progression of colour-coded attacks that needed to be appropriately responded to, shields that needed breaking and Big Tanky Guys that took some work to bring down. I do hope that enemy variety keeps up over the game’s runtime, and requires a combination of skill tree curation and adaptation to overcome.
Stealth is also a consideration here, with Wolverine able to get the jump on unsuspecting baddies for some brutal takedowns, but I got the sense that there’s not a huge amount of importance placed on it, at least as far as I played. I’d go into each encounter with a couple of hidden kills under my belt but I had absolutely no reason not to let myself get spotted and start going feral on anyone who dared respond. One area of the preview had Logan skulking around a sort of Nuketown scenario where Trask was training soldiers to hunt mutants in a fake town, which encouraged a bit of a wider approach and plenty of jumping off roofs to crack skulls, which was a nice change of pace and offered some interesting interactions.
This next section of the preview saw me face-to-face with one of the formidable Sentinels, though seemingly a work-in-progress model that only came at me with its top half. This lengthy and genuinely challenging “boss” encounter sees Logan working together a little with Mystique and Sabertooth, and while the bulk of the fight boils down to dodging big robot arms and then hacking away at them when they’re exposed, you can occasionally call on Mystique to shoot at the Sentinel’s vital parts and cause it a moment of distress where you can get a bunch of hits in. Reiner-Reed assures me there are plenty more of these team-up moments to come across the rest of the game.
The final part of our demo was a lot more downplayed, fast forwarding us to what was apparently around the end of the game’s first act. Here, we’re exploring Lowtown, which fans might already know as something of a lawless, ambiguously-Southeast Asian spot where criminals and mutants alike can hang out with little fear of intervention. This very much reads like Logan’s closest facsimile of “home,” and with conflict out of mind for a moment I’m afforded the chance to wander around the Princess Bar and get to know his (somewhat reluctant) allies a little better. This manifests in some levity-inducing moments, like an arm wrestle with Sabretooth or a drinking game with Mystique. It goes a long way to imparting the kind of person Logan is and the many small ways that his companions have found to break through to him – namely tests of strength and shots of whiskey.
This section also introduces the idea of Nightmare Doors, one of which I happen upon while searching the streets for Jean Gray. These represent unlockable “trials” for players to complete. Combat challenges, traversal races and so on, not unlike the optional challenges found throughout the Spider-Man games. But these also offer an insight into Wolverine’s horrific past and the state of his mind, which is one a few avenues that Insomniac is giving players some story threads and character work to hang onto between the action and major cutscenes – especially when the game’s structure looks to match Wolverine’s typical momentum and rarely stay in place long.
“Overall, with the story it is very roller coaster action adventure Logan’s not somebody who stays around,” Reiner-Reed explains.
“Spider-Man, he has his friendly neighborhood. He stays around that spot, he knows it he, knows the people in the neighborhood.That’s very not Logan. Logan’s like – I’m here for a job, what’s the next thing I need to do? I’m trying to solve this mystery. Now I need to go to Japan, or now I need to go to Canada. So everything’s really compelling him.”
The section finished off with a kidnapping at the hands of, well, The Hand, which begets a chase through the streets and over the buildings of Lowtown. It’s a pretty typical on-foot set piece where you’re constantly sprinting ahead to the next climbing or jumping-off point, designed to look cool as hell and just lightly test your reflexes. There was a point here that I had to restart, as I got a little turned around and offended the game’s regular programming to the point where it gave up on plonking me back on course and just outright failed me. It seems like you’ll have a bit of flexibility in the paths you take and how you tackle obstacles in these bits, but I can confirm it’s still possible to just get them wrong.
Visually, of course, Marvel’s Wolverine is looking just peachy. I don’t think that should surprise anyone to hear that, given Insomniac’s track record, but it certainly does seem as though the more “directed” scenarios and pulled-in camera have allowed for an even greater focus on the finer details. Logan’s thick, winged head of hair and mutton chops have rarely looked quite this luscious, and the way his body and suit take very noticeable damage that takes into full account what he’s being subjected to is incredibly impressive. Liam McIntyre’s face fits the man like a glove made out of a face, and his performance capture is impressive at all scales from brooding to bloodthirsty, so I think fans will be very happy with yet another Aussie mug representing Wolvie.
This was all running in the Performance Pro visual setting on a PS5 Pro, and although it was a preview build subject to plenty of change ahead of launch, I was impressed by the fidelity and how smoothly everything ran even when I was tearing shreds out of foes and furniture with equal abandon. It’s already been confirmed that the game will run at 60FPS with ray-tracing enabled by default on a base PS5, which is great to hear, so Pro owners should hopefully be very happy with whatever else sits on top of that.
All told, a couple hours with Marvel’s Wolverine paints a fairly positive picture. I don’t doubt that a departure from Spider-Man’s rich open world will do much to convince the same folks who avoid similarly-linear action adventure games, but it’s the allure of this new story and exploration of Logan that should hopefully prove the formula valid. For now, it’s a gorgeous and very violent hack-and-slash-and-hack-some-more blockbuster with buckets of blood and beautifully-bearded bastards, and if that’s not Wolverine then what is?
Previewed at an event hosted by PlayStation. Screenshot imagery provided by PlayStation.
Born into the world of video games through SEGA, and in particular Sonic the Hedgehog, Kieron’s gaming tastes now consist of the latest, shiny AAA thing, an indie darling or two, and an embarrassing number of hours of Balatro.