Marvel’s Wolverine arrives as the latest PS5 exclusive from Insomniac, the studio behind Spider-Man, and it captures just how angry its lead character is. This is a straightforward action game that is at its best when you are literally slicing through enemies or thrust into a sequence pulled from a blockbuster film, whether that means climbing the fuselage of a plane as it careens towards land or racing a motorcycle across rain-slicked city streets. It is the kind of game that can get your heart rate rising, and keeping Logan angry is central to the strategy. In many ways it is a throwback to the straightforward action titles of the past, a refreshing change of pace in a medium saturated with live-service and open-world games.
A Linear Journey with Team X
Although it comes from Insomniac, Marvel’s Wolverine is very different from Spider-Man, which placed the web-slinger in an open-world version of New York City. This is a much more linear experience that feels like a combination of two other PlayStation staples: God of War and Uncharted. Rather than following Wolverine as a member of the X-Men, the story instead casts him as an often reluctant member of Team X, a mercenary group with similar pro-mutant aims but a far more violent approach. Instead of heroes such as Cyclops and Professor X, Logan is joined by more villain-adjacent characters including Sabretooth, Mystique and Nathaniel Essex, before eventually connecting with Jean Grey. The narrative pulls Logan and his companions across the globe, but it starts out relatively simple, as they investigate a rash of mutant disappearances connected to a billionaire arms dealer.
Rage-Fuelled Combat and Set-Pieces
The most important thing about both the character and the game is fighting. Logan loves to scrap, and his mutant powers of healing and sharp claws make him very good at it, able to both absorb huge amounts of damage and dish it out. The combat is fast and violent and forces you to be aggressive. Wolverine can leap huge distances to take out foes and use his claws to both repel attacks and slice at enemies, often with gruesome results; at the end of a battle he is usually coated in blood. A key element is Wolverine’s rage level, which increases the more you fight. As his rage grows, it allows two things: to go berserk and kill a group of enemies with a single blow, and to use his healing power as a sort of extra life should health deplete. It is a clever system that means you cannot sit back and play it safe.
The Uncharted influence emerges through the over-the-top set-pieces, moments that make it feel as though you are playing out a wild sequence from an action film. There are chases across the rooftops of Tokyo, massive boss battles against iconic comic book villains, and scenes where Wolverine is literally torn apart as he fights for survival.
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Image: theverge.com
