DYSG Media Review of ‘Wolverine’

I’m late. I know.

Marvel’s Wolverine has been out for a couple of weeks now, which on the internet means I’m approximately six years late with this review. The reviews are out. The discourse has happened. Everybody has already decided whether this game is amazing, overrated, disappointing, too short, too linear, too violent, not violent enough, or somehow responsible for the current price of eggs.

So why am I reviewing it now?

Well, unlike other publications, I actually wanted to play the damn game first.

And after finishing it, having my moment of Post-Completion Emptiness, jumping back in for New Game+, I keep coming back to one thought:

What the hell did y’all want Wolverine to be?

Because the game I played was beautiful, violent, well-written, incredibly fun, and—most importantly—it felt like Wolverine. And apparently, that wasn’t enough for everybody.

Stop Asking Wolverine to Be Spider-Man

One of the strangest criticisms surrounding Wolverine has been the comparison to Insomniac’s previous Marvel games: the Spider-Man series. I understand why the comparison exists. Same developer. Same Marvel banner. Same expectations that come with Insomniac’s track record. But these are two completely different superheroes.

Spider-Man needs an open world. Traversal is part of the fantasy of being Spider-Man. Give me Peter Parker or Miles Morales and then tell me I can’t leap from a skyscraper, swing across Manhattan, run along the side of a building, stop a random crime, and then launch myself halfway across New York; then what are we doing?

Wolverine doesn't need that. Logan isn't looking over the Canadian wilderness thinking, “Man, I wish I could fast travel over there.” He walks. Angrily. The more confined structure of Wolverine works because it fits the character and the story Insomniac is trying to tell. The environments give you enough room to explore without creating a giant map full of icons just so somebody can brag about how many square miles the game has. Not every superhero game needs an open world. More importantly, not every character benefits from one.

Yes, There Is a Lot of Clawing and Slashing

Another complaint I've seen boils down to the combat being repetitive because there is a whole lot of clawing and slashing.

Respectfully...IT'S FUCKING WOLVERINE!!!

What do you want this five-foot furball of rage to do?

Explore space?!?!?

The man has six adamantium claws coming out of his hands and a century’s worth of unresolved trauma. Stabbing people is some shit he’s gonna do a lot of. And thankfully, stabbing people in this game feels really damn good.

The combat mechanics are responsive, aggressive, and appropriately brutal. Wolverine doesn't fight like Spider-Man. He shouldn't. There is weight behind Logan's attacks. He feels like somebody who knows he can take whatever punishment you're about to give him and has already decided you're going to regret trying. There’s not much I'd change mechanically.

If I'm being picky—and considering the score I'm eventually giving this game, we're firmly in picky territory—I would've liked more combat animations and more opportunities to use stealth.

Logan's heightened senses and experience make him perfectly capable of hunting enemies instead of simply charging through the front door every time. A few additional sequences allowing me to stalk enemies would've added another layer to the gameplay.

Then again, if I want to spend twenty minutes hanging upside down from a gargoyle while psychologically terrorizing six armed men, I should probably boot up Arkham Knight and leave Wolverine alone.

Good Lord, This Game Is Pretty

We need to talk about how this game looks, because DAMN. I'm not going to pretend I'm Digital Foundry and start explaining rendering pipelines to you. I know what my eyes told me. Wolverine is gorgeous. The environmental art direction is fantastic. Japan feels lush, atmospheric, and lived-in. Canada feels rugged, cold, and appropriately unforgiving. Lighting, environmental detail, and texture work combine to make these places feel less like levels you're moving through and more like actual locations Logan is occupying.

But the character work impressed me even more.

The facial animation and performance capture do an incredible amount of storytelling. Small changes in expression communicate anger, grief, resentment, affection, and exhaustion without characters having to announce what they're feeling. These are people carrying decades of baggage, and you can see it on their faces. Even Sabretooth's toxic ass has range. That's impressive. Shout out to the entire voice acting and MO-CAP team behind this game. You definitely deserve a steak!

Speaking of Sabretooth...

Some of my favorite moments in the entire game came from simply watching Logan interact with people who know him. Not Wolverine…Logan.

Lady Deathstrike doesn't merely dislike him. There is history behind that hatred, and their exchanges feel like somebody ripped dialogue panels directly from a comic.

Then there's Sabretooth.

Their relationship has always fascinated me because Creed and Logan are simultaneously enemies, rivals, brothers-in-arms, and twisted reflections of one another. They can seemingly hate each other enough to commit murder while still possessing an understanding of one another that very few people ever could. The game gets that. Their shared pain is there. Their history is there. Their primal hatred is definitely there. And somehow, buried underneath all of it, there's still this bizarre bond between them.

Then we have Jean Grey. And I really liked what Insomniac did here. We've seen the “Logan desperately wants Jean” story plenty of times. Usually, he's pining after a woman whose heart belongs somewhere else while Cyclops is somewhere adjusting his visor and wondering why this short Canadian man won't leave his girlfriend alone.

This felt different. There was mutual yearning. You could feel that these two people genuinely wanted each other, even if circumstances, history, and their own decisions kept getting in the way. It made their relationship feel less like Logan obsessing over Jean and more like two damaged people who could see something they wanted but couldn't quite figure out how to hold onto it.

And, well...shit went left.

Insomniac, We Need to Talk

Now comes one of my actual criticisms.

Insomniac...My brothers and sisters in gaming...

Please find another trope.

I love a good Cain-and-Abel story as much as anybody. Friendships falling apart can create fantastic drama. But we've done this more than once. The whole “friend/mentor/person emotionally connected to the protagonist eventually betrays them and becomes an antagonist because PAIN” thing has become a little too familiar across Insomniac's Marvel games.

At this point, being close friends with the protagonist in an Insomniac Marvel game feels like the first stage of a supervillain origin story. And here's the frustrating part:

They're good at it.

That's why I'm complaining. The emotional beats work. The performances work. The betrayal hurts because the writers do enough work beforehand to make the relationship matter. But eventually I stop being shocked. I'm just sitting there like: “Ahhh. There it is.”

Give me something else next time, please.

Just Long Enough

I could've played more Wolverine. That's probably one of the best compliments I can give it. When the credits rolled, I wasn't exhausted. I wasn't wondering how many unnecessary missions I'd completed just to stretch a 15-hour story into 30 hours. I wasn't relieved it was over. I wanted more.

But there's an important difference between wanting more game and believing the game needed to be longer. I don't think it did. Stretching the main story just for the sake of giving players more hours could've hurt the pacing. The narrative moves with purpose, and I'd rather finish a game wishing I had five more hours than spend the final five hours begging the developers to wrap this shit up.

Where I think Insomniac could've added more content was through more optional side missions. Imagine Logan using his heightened senses to track down mutants scattered throughout the world. They wouldn't even need to be huge names. Actually, I'd prefer if they weren't. Give longtime X-Men readers characters we recognize. Let newer fans discover them for the first time. Build little stories around mutants trying to hide, escape, survive, or find others like themselves. It would've expanded the world without bloating Logan's story. That would've been my sweet spot.

The Bosses Could've Hit Harder

The boss battles were fun, but this is another area where I'd knock the game slightly. Most of them sit comfortably around medium difficulty. Once you recognize the attack patterns, things become fairly manageable. Dodge this. Counter that. Wait for the opening. Introduce adamantium to somebody's internal organs.

Eat, Sleep, SNIKT, Repeat

I rarely finished a boss battle feeling as if I'd survived by the skin of my teeth. And once you reach New Game+...cakewalk! That doesn't make the battles bad. The presentation and character interactions surrounding them still make several encounters memorable. I just wanted some of these people to beat my ass a little more. In the words of Thor when faced against the Frost Giants, “At least make it a challenge for me!”

This Game Knows Wolverine

Maybe the thing I appreciated most was how much Wolverine seems to understand the character's history. The Easter eggs are everywhere. Not just references to Wolverine the X-Man, either. There are nods to Logan's history as a solo character, his relationships, his past, and the enormous corner of Marvel mythology he's occupied over the decades. That's how you do fan service. It isn't just: HEY! LOOK! THING YOU RECOGNIZE!

The references reward people who know Logan without requiring everybody else to stop playing and open Wikipedia. When I caught one, I smiled. When I didn't catch one until later, I appreciated it even more. The game understands that Wolverine existed long before somebody pressed Start.

So...Was It Worth the Wait?

Absolutely. And I think some of the criticism surrounding Wolverine comes from expectations the game never needed to satisfy.

It didn't need to be Spider-Man with claws.

It didn't need a gigantic open world.

It didn't need 60 hours of content.

It didn't need Wolverine swinging through downtown Toronto collecting backpacks.

It needed to make me feel like Logan.

It needed brutal combat.

It needed complicated relationships.

It needed violence, pain, history, anger, and just enough humanity underneath all of it to remind us why this little hairy psychopath has remained one of Marvel's most popular characters for decades. Insomniac gave me that. Is it perfect?

Nah.

I would've liked stronger bosses. More stealth options. A little more optional content. And for the love of God, that writers' room needs some new blood. Maybe a 40+ year old with an extensive knowledge of Marvel’s history?

Hey, you miss the shots you don’t take.

But those complaints don't outweigh what the game does right. Not even close. So after two weeks, a completed campaign, some New Game+, and enough time for the launch-day noise to settle…9 out of 10. And honestly? That missing point is mostly me being picky. Because when the biggest complaint I have about a Wolverine game is that I wanted more Wolverine? Yeah, Insomniac did their job.