Marvel’s Wolverine Review – Insomniac Unleashes the Animal

Please note: This review contains major spoilers for the game’s story, characters, and key gameplay moments. If you’re planning to play the game yourself, we recommend returning once you’ve finished your playthrough.

Introduction

It feels like we’ve been waiting a long time for Insomniac to finally drop Marvel’s Wolverine. We know just how successful the studio has been with its Spider-Man franchise, but things seemed to slow down following the huge Insomniac leak at the end of 2023. From the outside looking in, everything surrounding the studio felt a little quieter afterwards, and Wolverine almost seemed to stagnate with it.

Naturally, we had incredibly high expectations going into this. Those expectations did begin to waver slightly when the critic reviews started pouring out, particularly when we saw several scores in the 5s and 6s. It definitely raised some concerns, but given how excited we’d been for the game, we were always going to hold out and form our own opinion once we’d actually played it.

And we’ve now done exactly that. Marvel’s Wolverine opens as brutally as you’d expect. It’s bloody, violent and immediately establishes itself as a proper hack-and-slash experience, backed up by exceptional combat and an incredibly solid foundation. It’s certainly not without its flaws, and we’ll get into those throughout this review, but it didn’t take long before some of the concerns created by those early critic scores began to disappear.

Story & Characters

So far, the story has been somewhat engaging. The story has a strong balance between quieter character-driven moments and intense action sequences. The pacing keeps things moving without feeling rushed, while Wolverine’s personality and relationships give the narrative enough emotional weight to make you somewhat interested in where his journey is headed.

The pacing works well throughout the campaign, with the game rarely feeling like it has overstayed its welcome in any particular section. The story works well with the pacing as it moves naturally between character-focused moments and brutal combat encounters, keeping the experience varied while steadily building momentum as the story goes on.

The main characters, especially Liam McIntyre’s portrayal of Logan, are memorable and well developed. Wolverine will obviously take centre stage and rightfully so. This version of Logan feels so much more in terms of story and memorable moments. Wolverine is incredible while also not making the supporting cast feel insignificant. Each character has their own personality, motivations, and relationships with Logan. The quieter conversations between the action massively add depth and make their relationships feel genuine rather than simply existing to push the story.

The supporting cast plays an important role in making the story feel bigger than just Wolverine. Their relationships, personalities, and motivations add emotional weight to this journey that Logan is on. The performances also help sell those connections, with convincing voice acting and motion capture making conversations feel natural while bringing plenty of intensity to the game’s more dramatic moments.

The antagonist is memorable and effective, providing a genuine threat that feels worthy of Wolverine while having enough presence and motivation to be more than simply another obstacle to fight. Their involvement helps raise the stakes throughout the story, creating a more personal conflict for Logan while giving the campaign a strong sense of tension and urgency.

The emotional moments land well because the story gives the characters within it enough quieter moments between the violence for their struggles to feel meaningful. Themes of identity, trauma, revenge, trust, and Logan’s constant battle with the darker side of himself stand out, giving the story more depth than simply being a brutal Wolverine adventure.

Gameplay & Content

The game’s mission structure is very linear. It’s not the traditional open-world format we’re used to from Insomniac, but it makes complete sense here as to why it isn’t. There are still smaller open segments that allow you to roam around, although these are mainly used to locate crates and collectibles or find Nightmare Cabins scattered throughout the game to complete additional challenges.

Of course, it’s Wolverine, so there’s a lot of brutality and pure gruesome violence. It’s beautiful. There’s something oddly satisfying about seeing Logan absolutely covered in blood after going berserk and tearing through a group of enemies. It adds another satisfying element to the combat and gives Wolverine its own identity, especially compared to something like Spider-Man where, for obvious reasons, you’re never going to get that level of violence. Wolverine feels like a proper hack-and-slash game, and I would’ve expected no less.

The combat itself is great. I saw people complaining that it became boring, but I can’t see that at all. You could make a similar argument about the Spider-Man games if you’re simply looking at the basic combat loop. Wolverine continues to add different abilities, which I’ll go into shortly, alongside perks that can change the way you play. Some can make your rage meter fill faster, for example, allowing you to go berserk more often and make the combat even more brutal. The mechanics are easy to understand, but there’s enough progression throughout the game to keep making Logan feel more powerful.

I found the controls to be spot on, and the automatic lock-on to enemies worked perfectly fine as well. I genuinely had no issues here. I also liked the challenge provided by some of the different enemy types, particularly when the game begins throwing combinations of them at you. Those invisible enemies can really cause some problems when you’ve got a few of them surrounding you at once.

Where the gameplay does fall short is that, outside of the combat, that’s pretty much it. There isn’t a huge amount of variety, and I think that’s one of the areas that lets the game down. I’ll keep comparing Wolverine to Spider-Man because they’re from the same developer, but even Spider-Man offered different types of content through police reports, photography, AR challenges, side missions, mini-games and more. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not entirely sure what else they could’ve added to Wolverine without forcing content in for the sake of it, but that lack of variety is ultimately why I’ve scored the gameplay an 8/10. What’s here is still very good; I just feel like there could’ve been more.

New Game+ being included in the base game is an absolute positive and deserves a lot of credit. Games like this are perfect for New Game+ because you’re already able to become incredibly powerful towards the end of your first playthrough. Being able to take all of those upgrades into another run and become even more powerful is part of the fun, while also giving you the option of increasing the difficulty without losing everything you’ve earned. As we’ve come to expect from Insomniac, the platinum trophy doesn’t feel ridiculous either, so players who want to experience everything the game has to offer shouldn’t be looking at an unnecessary grind.

Customisation

It’s Wolverine. So naturally, as a superhero who’s appeared across an abundance of comics, games, TV shows, movies and more, there was always going to be a good selection of suits to choose from. That was expected, but I also really liked the fact that we could choose which claws we wanted Logan to use. Obviously, Wolverine’s suits aren’t always as flashy as some other superheroes, but the selection does the character justice and there are plenty of options to choose from.

You can, of course, customise which abilities you want to use as well, allowing you to pick the ones that best suit your playstyle. Combined with the different perks and upgrades available throughout the game, there’s enough here to make Logan feel like your own version of Wolverine without overcomplicating things.

Where this section does fall a little flat for me is the lack of customisation for some of the other characters. I would’ve loved to change the appearances of Sabretooth, Mystique, Jean and others. I know we can’t actually play as them, so it’s hardly a major issue, but this is the closest thing we’ve had to an X-Men game in years. Having some classic or alternative looks available for those characters would’ve been a really nice addition.

Presentation & Performance

Visually, the game looks stunning, with detailed environments, impressive character models, and brutal combat animations that make every encounter feel impactful. The art direction also stands out, particularly in the way different locations establish their own atmosphere, while the darker visual style perfectly complements Wolverine and the gritty, brutally violent world surrounding him.

The animations are incredibly smooth and believable, especially during combat where Wolverine’s movements feel fast, aggressive, and suitably brutal, while the more subtle character animations help conversations feel natural. The soundtrack complements the action without overpowering it. The overall audio design is excellent, with impactful combat sounds, environmental details, and strong voice work making the world feel more immersive.

The user interface is clean and easy to navigate, with menus, upgrades, and other important information presented clearly without becoming overwhelming. The overall experience also feels polished; however, there have been a few bugs and glitches. In one combat scene, I noticed my hits were not actually hitting the guy, and he just died. There was a time when the game crashed as well.

Overall, the performance is very solid, with a consistently smooth frame rate, quick loading times, and good stability throughout the experience. Any minor technical bug or glitch is easy to overlook unless it’s truly repeating throughout the story, where we see the game crash at the same point; we’re lucky that there was none of this, so it never significantly impacted the enjoyment, allowing the combat and cinematic moments to remain immersive.

Buy, rent, wait for a sale or avoid?

I think this game has received a lot of hate, with IGN’s review in particular becoming a huge talking point surrounding the game. I’m a big believer in understanding that everyone has their own opinion, and that’s exactly why it’s important to form your own. Reviews are subjective, including ours, and your experience with a game can be completely different to someone else’s.

For me, Marvel’s Wolverine is absolutely worth buying. The game is great, I thoroughly enjoyed what it set out to do, and despite some of the issues I’ve mentioned throughout this review, I came away very satisfied with the overall experience. If the brutal combat, linear structure and the idea of finally getting a proper Wolverine game appeals to you, there’s a lot to enjoy here.

And while you’re at it, buy it physically. Let’s prove a point to Sony. More importantly, support the people who spent years bringing this game to life. Whatever you think of Sony and some of the decisions they’ve made recently, there’s clearly been a huge amount of work put into Marvel’s Wolverine, and I’d love to see Insomniac given the opportunity to build on what they’ve created here.