Marvel’s Wolverine is the next superhero adventure from the team behind Marvel’s Spider-Man, and Insomniac’s first steps toward expanding their little Marvel universe. When compared to Peter Parker’s relative restraint, Wolverine’s violence seems gratuitous; however, it feels as if Insomniac has identified an unmet need for both themselves as artists and the game world, which has a maturity that reaches beyond Spider-Man’s street-level exploits. Marvel’s Wolverine scratches the itch for those wanting something as honest to its source material as Spider-Man but with a bit more snikt-snikt.
Set in a world before the formation of the X-Men, James “Logan” Howlett reluctantly returns to Team X to work alongside Sabretooth and Mystique, under the direction of Nathaniel Essex, to provide safe harbour for mutants in a time of need. Bolivar Trask, a billionaire hell-bent on hunting mutants to preserve his belief in human superiority, serves as one of the game’s big bads, though anyone who has followed comics should have a rough idea of where Marvel’s Wolverine might go.
The game’s opening act, which made up much of the preview content, establishes stakes immediately, as Team X deploys into a Telambang jungle in search of Nathaniel Essex, who is being held in captivity. Although it’s our first time meeting these characters, their history and dynamic are palpable as Victor and Logan butt heads constantly, giving a general sense of the tense politics within the group—which permeate relationships beyond Wolverine and Sabretooth, as you’d expect.
If you asked: “Who is Wolverine?” I expect the answer you’d probably receive most would be our Hugh. Although he’s clearly not prepared to let the mantle go within the context of Marvel’s film slate, with Jackman rumoured to be pulling double-duty in Doomsday and Secret Wars, I’m a big fan of Liam McIntyre’s interpretation of the character thus far, and not just because it continues Australia’s track record of being the export nation for Wolverine performers. He strikes a delicate balance between Logan’s rage and his cognisant fear of being unable to control it; there’s a lot of nuance in what he’s doing in scene work. While he’s no stranger to big roles, I do feel being able to bounce off the likes of Troy Baker is sure to bring out one’s best.
Unlike Spider-Man, who prides himself on being a street-level hero, Logan’s is a globe-trotting crusade that spans his homeland of Canada, Telambang, and Madripoor, among others. Despite this, the biggest question surrounded the game’s scope and how it’d compare to Spider-Man’s open-world New York City. In short, Wolverine is a linear, story-driven adventure more akin to the remainder of PlayStation’s first-party portfolio, so players should expect a spectacular collision of the game’s curated action, combat, and set pieces rather than a boundless sandbox to explore. The initial laboratory siege in Telambang sees you cutting clean through jungle thickets in what is carnage in a straight line, whereas the chase sequence in Madripoor felt scoped up and gave us a couple of detailed city blocks to explore.
After crushing traversal mechanics with Spider-Man, I didn’t expect for movement in Wolverine to feel quite as good, but it’s delivered so beautifully through the game’s animation artists as Logan’s feral, low to the ground run would be sure to strike fear into the hearts of those awaiting his claws, while his powerful lunging—a contextual, primal heaving of his small frame—helps Logan close distance when the need presents.
As you’d expect, Wolverine is a bloody and ferocious experience. In terms of the game’s combat, it presents in a quite similar way to Marvel’s Spider-Man in that it’s combo-driven with a big focus on counters, dodge rolls and the like. Of course, Logan’s approach is on the opposite end of the spectrum to Peter Parker’s as the latter’s relative restraint surrenders to unhinged rage, which makes for an exciting, albeit confronting, change of pace. Blood and guts isn’t for everyone, and Insomniac gives players the tools to tone down the gore and claret as they see fit, which is a commendable accessibility step considering the subject matter.
A somewhat bespoke element, when compared to other Insomniac titles, of the Wolverine experience is how his rage is depicted and handled. Similar to God of War’s Spartan Rage, a meter builds gradually before boiling over as a flashy, unrelenting onslaught that can continue so long as there’s not a significant lapse in the carnage. It’s a flurry of face stabs, delimbification, and snarling that feels equal parts powerful and unsettling.
One of the big elephants in the room, for me, was how Wolverine’s healing factor and immortality would be handled to keep the “video game” of it all engaging, and I think a fine balance has been struck. Well-placed, and semi-frequent, mutant-gene inhibitors provide flashes of vulnerability, though death outside of these moments is explained away as an “overwhelming” of Logan’s healing factor.
Separate to the general flow of combat, which is quite familiar, Wolverine also has an element of build-crafting when it comes to equipping abilities and mutation strands, giving players quite a bit of freedom to tailor the gameplay loop to their preferences. While there’s a clear laser-focus on damage output, other skills, like Tornado Spin, are useful for creating space, and there are several upgrades that create cool combo chain enders, finishing with opportunistic staggers, and retaliatory counters. Those struggling with combat might opt to equip skills that buff Wolverine’s healing factor, or even something like Enraging Sprint, which converts damage taken from ranged attacks into rage.
The game also presents you with stealth opportunities, especially earlier on as I crept through the Telambang jungles. Though it’s a viable option to keep a low-profile, I did feel as though it was at odds with the game’s tone and Wolverine’s general fiery disposition; it felt as though they’d put work into developing the systems for Spider-Man’s Mary Jane missions and figured it best to keep them. At no point did I ever consider remaining in cover as Wolverine sings when you’re claws out.
The cheapest price – Amazon $99 (free delivery)
Comparable to Spider-Man’s Taskmaster challenges, which would eventually be repurposed as training modules for Miles Morales in the spin-off, Wolverine’s Nightmare Doors are an enjoyable distraction from the single-player campaign. Hidden in the game’s open areas, these challenges, from what I’ve seen, are tests of traversal skills or proficiency in combat. They come complete with medal placings, upgrade points that can only otherwise be found as whisky bottles within the game’s world, and some of the more profoundly depressing lore drops in the game, sombrely performed by McIntyre. Existing outside of Wolverine’s otherwise grounded world, bound by physics, these dreamlike, surreal challenges—more specifically the traversal ones—are built around the spectacle of ascending, and escaping, the distorted, shattered remains of a small townscape.
Like the Spider-Man games, there’s more than enough fan service in the suits the team has opted to incorporate into the game. Insomniac’s suits have tended to have a more armoured build, and that’s no different here, though I do love that the assignment to incorporate the iconic yellow was understood. Outside of the default “Battle Reborn” suit, there are several others that’ll pique the interests of long-time fans. The few I saw included his Weapon X look, which is more of a birthday suit, to be honest, the infamous brown suit, and even Hugh Jackman’s look from the Deadpool and Wolverine film. There’s also a heap of different claw options which can be mixed and matched with any look in a kind of Wolvie suit salad.
From a visual perspective, Wolverine is clearly a much darker game than Spider-Man, and this is most evident in the game’s action. I do think it’s animated and choreographed quite nicely, making sure to linger ever so slightly on golden frames comic fans are sure to recognise. On the other hand, I do think the blood, of which there’s gallons of the stuff, can look a little goofy at times, and it’s at its most egregious when Logan is in the middle of one of his rageful outbursts, which tends to strip all colour, except red, from the frame in a way that’s Frank Miller-like. Everything else looks great so far, from the frenetic combat right through to the performances.
From a sound perspective, the audio design is out of this world and demands a good set of headphones, as there are definitely moments in the game that’ll make them sing. The big Sentinel fight, which served as the midway point of the hands-on, was one such moment, as the growl of the bass and low-end sold the scale of the threat.
I came away from this preview mighty impressed with how Insomniac is handling Wolverine, from the savagery of the combat to McIntyre’s layered, complicated portrayal of the Weapon X. It might be less of a sandbox, but the narrative’s enormity within this shared universe is felt while maintaining the emotional concentration that Spider-Man managed to do so well.
Marvel’s Wolverine is out on September 15, launching exclusively for PlayStation 5. Amazon has the lowest price of $99, including free delivery.
The Author of this article travelled to Insomniac HQ in LA as a guest of PlayStation for the purpose of this preview.
