Marvel’s Wolverine is the violent X-Men game Marvel fans have been waiting for, but is it worth your time?
Set in the same universe as Insomniac’s rather awesome Spider-Man games (but oddly not the relatively recent Avengers and Guardians of the Galaxy games), Marvel’s Wolverine finally gives X-Men fans something they’ve been asking for – a hyper-brutal Wolverine experience where Logan’s claws do exactly what they were made to do.
Yes, Marvel’s Wolverine is a violent and stylish gorefest where the titular mutant can slice, dice, and impale enemies aplenty. And if you’re a sick puppy like us, it’s gleefully fun and incredibly refreshing after the family-friendly Wolverine we’ve seen across Marvel media for decades.
Combat is slick and fluid, and once you master it, it’s rewarding and moreish. In time, you can upgrade Logan’s skills to make them more powerful and add more moves to your repertoire, making Wolverine even more fun and deadly to control.
The game tries not to bog players down with remembering dozens of combos, nor does it simply let you passively upgrade your damage like an RPG would. Instead, the game tries to strike a balance between giving you more things to try, but without it ever becoming overwhelming.
You don’t so much craft a build, but you do get to pick your preferred skills, then equip and upgrade them. But it won’t take you long to max everything out, especially if you’re engaging in the side content and exploring the map to unlock extras.
Image credit: Insomniac
These come in the form of whiskey bottles, Nightmare Doors to unlock Wolverine’s hidden past, and general materials to upgrade his suits. You can ignore all of this and still beat the game easily enough on normal, difficulty, but we found it paid to hunt down these items. Not only did it give us more freedom to customise and upgrade Wolverine, but it also gave us some nice lore to learn and extra costumes to see get shredded.
You can also go back and replay missions if you miss something, so you won’t need to start again if you miss one pesky memory. The game isn’t open-world; in fact, it’s very linear, but there are still times you get to explore some fun locations and hunt for secrets. It’s not all about ripping and tearing; sometimes just walking around Team X’s base and chatting with your fellow mutants is engaging enough.
But the linearity of the game is both a weakness and a strength. For example, Wolverine may share DNA with Insomniac’s Spider-Man games, but while players can pick those up and go swinging around the city solving crime any time they want, that isn’t an option here. You basically play through the story. And that’s it.
Of course, it’s a 15-hour adventure, so replaying the game again with a fully upgraded Logan is always a possibility, but there are only so many times players will do this before they hit uninstall. Wolverine is intended to be a quick blast, a playable movie that offers an alternative origin story for the yellow spandexed superhero, so don’t expect 100 hours of entertainment here. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a linear single-player adventure, but we found it was an experience that eventually dulled over time.
Image credit: Insomniac
While the combat is electric, it’s not varied or deep enough to stay interesting for multiple playthroughs, and this is the biggest problem with Marvel’s Wolverine. The game is never bad, but nobody would judge you for completing Logan’s story, then firing Spider-Man 2 back up. We’re excited to see if Insomniac has a DLC roadmap, as there’s a lot of potential here, and that could solve this issue, especially if the title is successful and continues to receive support for a year or so.
The game introduces a varied cast of characters, many of whom are destined to become X-Men supervillains and who are at the start of their character arcs, keen to make the world a better place for mutants. Comic book readers and moviegoers know who Toad, Mystique, and Sabretooth become, but it’s fun to see them from this angle. It adds layers, motivation and positions them as sympathetic – like all the best Marvel villains are. But most of all, it creates fertile ground for future story content.
We’re also excited to see how Insomniac’s shared Marvel universe grows now that both Spider-Man and Wolverine live in it. While we don’t expect it to rival the MCU any time soon, we love the idea of a video game universe featuring Marvel properties continue to grow. Finally, we’re grateful to Insomniac for crafting a quality single-player adventure with one of fiction’s coolest superheroes. It’s adventures like this that made gaming what it is, so we always welcome more of them.