Insomniac Games has spent the last several years proving it understands superheroes.
Marvel’s Spider-Man was one of those rare licensed games that felt bigger than the license attached to it. It delivered spectacle, personality and, most importantly, a version of Spider-Man that was genuinely fun to control. Its sequels expanded on that foundation, although familiarity eventually started to creep in.
Marvel’s Wolverine was always going to be judged differently.
Logan is not Peter Parker. He does not swing between skyscrapers, crack jokes while fighting twenty enemies or spend his nights stopping car chases across Manhattan. Wolverine calls for something nastier, more intimate and much more violent.
And for the most part, Insomniac understands that.
Marvel’s Wolverine is an extremely polished action game with excellent combat, gorgeous production values and a story that becomes considerably more interesting than its opening hours suggest. At the same time, it feels strangely conservative for a project that spent so long carrying the weight of enormous expectations.
It is very good.
It just rarely feels revolutionary.
No Open World, No Problem
The first major difference compared to Insomniac's Spider-Man games becomes obvious almost immediately: Wolverine is a linear experience.
There is no giant city covered in icons, side activities and crimes constantly waiting for your attention. Instead, the campaign moves Logan through a series of carefully designed locations with a clear destination ahead.
You explore an area, fight enemies, watch a cinematic, move forward and eventually encounter another combat sequence or boss.
It is old-school structure, and I mean that as a compliment.
A focused campaign fits Wolverine extremely well. The pacing rarely gets lost in checklist content, and each environment can be built specifically around what is happening in the story instead of having to exist as part of a giant reusable map.
The downside is that the environments often feel less rewarding to explore than they initially appear.
Logan's enhanced senses can highlight important objects and make collectibles surprisingly easy to locate. Instead of encouraging you to carefully search every corner of an area, the mechanic frequently turns exploration into following information the game has already revealed to you.
There are secrets to find, but very few of them actually feel secret.
Traversal suffers from a similar issue.
There are climbing sequences, platforming sections and even moments involving Logan's motorcycle, but many of these ideas appear briefly before disappearing again. They add variety when they happen, which only makes it more noticeable that the campaign does not use them often enough.
There are several systems here that feel like they were built for a slightly bigger game.
Wolverine Feels Like Wolverine
Thankfully, fighting people is something Marvel’s Wolverine does very well.
And considering how much fighting you will be doing, that is important.
Combat is aggressive without becoming mindless. Logan's basic attacks are mapped to Square, while Circle handles dodging and L1 allows him to defend. Timing a block correctly results in a parry, which becomes one of the most important tools in tougher encounters.
Enemy attacks also demand different reactions. Certain strikes cannot simply be blocked, forcing you to dodge instead, while others can be countered and used to create an opening.
Triangle allows Logan to rapidly close the distance between himself and a targeted enemy, giving battles an almost predatory rhythm. You are constantly jumping from one target to another instead of slowly walking around an arena waiting for somebody to attack.
Holding Square performs a heavier kick capable of breaking defenses. Send an enemy into a nearby wall and you can stun them, creating an opportunity to continue the assault or use them to restore health.
That healing mechanic sounds slightly ridiculous when described out of context, but mechanically it works.
Instead of giving Wolverine health packs or forcing him to hide behind a wall while his health magically returns, Insomniac integrates his regeneration into combat. It keeps you engaged with enemies rather than encouraging you to run away whenever things become dangerous.
The Rage system follows the same philosophy.
As Logan fights, he builds a meter with three stages. Reaching its highest level turns him into an even more dangerous killing machine, but Rage also works as an emergency resource. If Logan loses all of his health while at least one section of the meter remains available, that energy can be converted into health.
It is a smart system because attacking, surviving and healing all feed into the same combat loop.
The result is a version of Wolverine that rarely feels fragile.
He gets knocked down. He gets stabbed. He gets shot.
Then he gets back up and keeps moving.
Exactly as he should.
Plenty of Tools, Not Enough Reasons to Use Them
As Logan gains experience, additional abilities gradually open up.
Special attacks are activated by holding L2 and pressing one of the four face buttons, while collectibles and optional challenges provide additional upgrades and perks that can be arranged around your preferred style of play.
There is considerably more mechanical depth here than the opening hours might suggest.
The problem is that the campaign rarely pushes the combat system hard enough to make all of those possibilities feel necessary.
You quickly discover a handful of attacks and combinations that work consistently, and there is very little pressure to abandon them.
Different enemy archetypes attempt to change the rhythm. Some carry defenses that need to be broken before they can take meaningful damage, while heavier opponents absorb punishment and interrupt your usual combos.
They help.
They just do not completely solve the bigger issue.
Marvel’s Wolverine loves throwing regular enemies at you.
A huge portion of the campaign consists of entering an area, eliminating a group, moving forward and doing it again. The combat is satisfying enough to carry that structure for a long time, but repetition eventually becomes difficult to ignore.
The issue is less about the number of enemy types and more about how frequently encounters ask you to solve the same problem in roughly the same way.
For a character with such a deep combat system, Wolverine occasionally feels like a game that is afraid to demand mastery of it.
Optional challenge areas expose this problem particularly well.
These sections push the game's movement and fighting mechanics further than most of the campaign does. They are faster, more demanding and often more creative.
And after playing them, I kept thinking the same thing:
Why isn't the main game doing more of this?
The foundation is clearly capable of supporting it.
Fighting the Camera
There is one design decision that initially makes combat more frustrating than it needs to be: there is no traditional lock-on system.
Instead, the game generally expects you to trust that Logan will attack the opponent you are directing him toward.
Most of the time, he does.
Until he doesn't.
During crowded encounters, there are moments where the lack of precise targeting becomes irritating, especially when you are trying to prioritize a specific enemy.
There are targeting options buried in the settings that can make the camera more focused on an opponent, but I never found them to be a complete replacement for a proper lock-on.
Eventually, you learn how the game interprets your movement and the problem becomes considerably less noticeable.
It never completely disappears.
Stealth Exists — Technically
Wolverine also includes stealth, although calling it a major pillar of the experience would be generous.
There are opportunities to quietly remove enemies before a fight begins, and occasionally Logan can reduce the number of opponents waiting for him by staying hidden.
Getting spotted, however, barely matters.
There is no serious consequence beyond turning the situation into another normal combat encounter.
Because fighting is already one of the strongest parts of the game, failure does not feel particularly threatening. Sometimes being discovered simply saves you the trouble of continuing to hide.
Companion characters such as Sabretooth and Jean Grey also participate in certain battles. They operate independently and can occasionally create openings or hold enemies in place for Logan.
They are useful additions to the spectacle, but they never evolve into a particularly meaningful companion system.
The Story Is Better Than It First Appears
The narrative was actually one of my biggest surprises.
The beginning had me worried.
For the first portion of the campaign, Marvel’s Wolverine seems to be heading toward a fairly predictable superhero story. Characters are introduced, familiar concepts appear and the direction feels easy to anticipate.
Then the Trask storyline begins moving forward.
From that point on, the game becomes significantly harder to predict.
Without getting into spoilers, several developments took the story in directions I genuinely did not expect, and the final stretch left a much stronger impression than the opening chapters.
Insomniac is also not afraid to reinterpret parts of Wolverine's mythology.
This is not a game desperately attempting to recreate one specific comic storyline panel by panel. Characters and concepts have been changed to serve this particular universe, sometimes substantially.
Comic readers who want absolute faithfulness may disagree with some of those decisions.
I preferred it.
Wolverine has existed for decades and has already lived through countless interpretations. Another version of Logan only becomes interesting when it is willing to establish an identity of its own.
This one does.
And by the time the credits rolled, I was far more interested in seeing where this universe goes next than I expected to be during the first few hours.
A Surprisingly Good Collection of Suits
Like Insomniac's Spider-Man titles, Wolverine includes a healthy selection of costumes to unlock.
This is one area where the developers clearly understood the assignment.
There are outfits covering different looks and eras, giving longtime Wolverine fans plenty to chase after. Some players will probably settle on one costume immediately. Others are going to change Logan's appearance every thirty minutes.
Mechanically, costumes are mostly cosmetic.
Unlocking additional suits gradually contributes to Logan's overall health progression, but wearing one specific costume does not provide unique abilities, bonuses or penalties.
Personally, that is the right decision.
Nobody wants to choose between looking cool and having the best stats.
Sometimes It Looks Ridiculous — In the Best Way
Technically, Marvel’s Wolverine is outstanding.
There are moments where you can simply stop moving and appreciate how much detail has been packed into the environment.
Tokyo is an obvious highlight.
Lighting, reflections, environmental density and character rendering combine to create some of the most impressive scenery on PS5. Insomniac has always been technically capable, but Wolverine occasionally feels like the studio flexing.
The violence is equally impressive, although "impressive" becomes a slightly strange word when discussing what Logan does to people.
Combat is brutal.
Clothing becomes damaged, Logan gets covered in wounds and blood, and his body visibly reflects what just happened during a fight. His regeneration helps sell the fantasy further, even if the visual recovery does occasionally occur at slightly odd moments.
Sound design is equally strong. Claws have weight, impacts sound painful and larger battles become appropriately chaotic without losing clarity.
The Brazilian Portuguese dub is also excellent overall.
During my playthrough, I encountered a few situations where dialogue briefly disappeared or switched language unexpectedly. These incidents were uncommon and feel like the type of issue that can easily be corrected through an update.
Outside of those audio bugs, the game was remarkably stable.
I experienced no meaningful performance problems or crashes during the campaign.
How Long Is Marvel’s Wolverine?
My first playthrough took roughly 13 to 15 hours while playing at a comfortable pace.
Cleaning up collectibles added around another three hours, putting a completion-focused run somewhere around the 18-hour mark depending on how thoroughly you explore during the story.
Most players can reasonably expect around 15 to 20 hours of content before New Game+ enters the equation.
For a linear action game, that length is completely reasonable.
The problem is perception.
Marvel’s Wolverine is positioned as a major full-price release, and the repetitive encounter structure can make those hours feel less substantial than the number suggests.
Someone who falls in love with the combat will probably walk away satisfied.
Someone who becomes tired of fighting standard enemies halfway through the campaign may start checking the clock.
The game is not necessarily too short.
It simply could have done more with the time it has.
The Missing Ingredient
That ultimately describes Marvel’s Wolverine better than anything else.
Almost every individual component works.
The combat system is strong.
The presentation is exceptional.
The story goes interesting places.
Logan feels powerful.
The environments are beautiful.
The progression systems provide plenty of tools.
Yet the campaign rarely combines those elements in ways that completely surprise you.
There are glimpses of something more ambitious in the optional challenges, traversal mechanics, motorcycle sequences and deeper combat abilities.
The game keeps showing you interesting ideas and then moving on before they can become something bigger.
That is frustrating because the potential is obvious.
Marvel’s Wolverine does not need an open world or another twenty hours of content. What it needed was more variety inside the experience it already has.
More situations that make you rethink combat.
More meaningful exploration.
More traversal.
More moments where Wolverine is doing something other than entering another arena full of enemies.
A sequel could easily address most of those complaints without rebuilding the foundation.
Because the foundation is already excellent.
Verdict
Marvel’s Wolverine is a polished, violent and thoroughly entertaining interpretation of Logan that succeeds far more often than it fails.
Insomniac has created a combat system that makes Wolverine feel powerful without removing all challenge, backed it with outstanding production values and wrapped it around a story that becomes genuinely compelling once it finds its footing.
What holds the game back from greatness is repetition.
Too much of the campaign relies on similar combat encounters, while traversal, stealth and several promising secondary mechanics never receive enough room to develop. Combined with a relatively compact runtime, it can leave the experience feeling less ambitious than its presentation suggests.
Still, these problems do not erase what works.
Marvel’s Wolverine is one of those games where finishing it leaves you wanting more — partly because it is good, and partly because you can clearly see how much further these ideas could go.
Score: 8.5/10
Great
A brutal and beautifully produced Wolverine adventure with satisfying combat and a surprisingly strong story. Limited gameplay variety and an overreliance on repeated enemy encounters keep it from reaching the very top tier, but Insomniac has built an excellent foundation for Logan's future.
Marvel’s Wolverine is available on PlayStation 5. The game includes Brazilian Portuguese voice acting and subtitles.
This review was conducted using a review code provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment.
Review written and game played by Andrew Louis.
Follow Andrew Louis: https://heydrew.link