Marvel’s Wolverine Review: A Guided Tour With Claws

Sony did not provide TechCravers with a review code for Marvel’s Wolverine. After finally spending time with Insomniac’s latest superhero game, I am beginning to understand why that absence stings less than it did before launch. This is not a disaster, and it is certainly polished in the expensive PlayStation sense, but it is one of the least engaging big-budget action games I have played in years.

Marvel’s Wolverine often feels less like an adventure I am driving and more like a film that occasionally asks me to hold the controller. The campaign pushes Logan through tightly controlled corridors, combat arenas and cinematic transitions with remarkably little room to wander, experiment or simply get lost. PlayStation itself describes the game as a story-driven single-player action-adventure whose world is not fully open, but that undersells how restrictive it can feel in practice.

A straight line with claws

Linearity is not automatically a flaw. Some of the best action games ever made are linear. The problem here is that Wolverine rarely replaces lost freedom with meaningful choices. Exploration is thin, traversal is routine and the route forward is usually painfully obvious. Even when the scenery opens up, the game seems desperate to make sure you never mistake the set for a place.

That design philosophy became almost comical with the now-infamous blue Scent Trails. They visualize Logan’s enhanced tracking senses by drawing a glowing route toward objectives and clues. Players quickly nicknamed the effect the “fart gas” or “fart trail,” and the criticism was not just about how silly it looks. In a game already this guided, another breadcrumb system can feel like the designers do not trust you to navigate even their narrow spaces.

Insomniac has since reduced the intensity of the effect and added toggles for some optional Scent Trails, including trails connected to collectibles and side content. Story-critical guidance remains. The patch is welcome, but it also highlights the underlying problem: Wolverine spends an extraordinary amount of effort making sure the player is never uncertain about where to go next.

The violence has bite, until it doesn't

Combat is initially the strongest argument for the game. Logan is fast, vicious and satisfyingly physical, and the more brutal finishers sell the fantasy of playing a character whose solution to most problems involves adamantium. Rage abilities can briefly turn routine encounters into a bloody power trip. The animation work and presentation do plenty of heavy lifting.

But the fighting does not develop enough to sustain the campaign. Familiar patterns settle in quickly: attack, dodge or parry, use abilities, repeat. Other reviews have arrived at a similar criticism. GameSpot scored the game 6/10 and called it fun but forgettable, while IGN praised the character work but found the combat wore thin. The Guardian likewise criticized the repetitive battling and the heavily restricted environments. Those opinions are not the basis for this score, but they mirror the central problem I kept running into.

Logan deserved better

What keeps Marvel’s Wolverine from falling even lower is Wolverine himself. Liam McIntyre gives Logan enough anger, exhaustion and vulnerability to make the quieter scenes work, and the character art is excellent. The story has flashes of genuine personality when it stops shuffling you toward the next arena and lets its cast breathe. There are also individual combat encounters where the speed, gore and spectacle click together exactly as they should.

Technically, this is also a handsome production. Insomniac knows how to stage an action sequence, and there are moments where lighting, animation and sheer cinematic polish make Wolverine look every bit like a flagship PS5 release. The problem is that spectacle cannot disguise how little agency sits underneath it.

Verdict

Marvel’s Wolverine is a lavishly produced straight line. Its best qualities are almost all presentational: a convincing Logan, strong performances, brutal animation and occasional bursts of superhero spectacle. As a game, however, it feels over-directed, repetitive and strangely afraid to let the player do anything unexpected. At 899 kronor on the Swedish PlayStation Store, that is a difficult proposition to recommend at full price.

Sony never sent TechCravers a review code, so this review arrives later and without the launch-day rush. In this case, the extra distance has not helped Wolverine. I wanted a feral action game that made me feel dangerous and unleashed. Too often I got a guided tour with claws.

Where to find it

• Marvel’s Wolverine on PlayStation