IGN has launched a new weekly preview roundup series to help readers keep pace with the avalanche of major releases barreling toward the holiday season. The inaugural edition covers four heavy hitters: Marvel's Wolverine from Insomniac Games, Star Wars Zero Company from Bit Reactor, Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave from Intelligent Systems, and Job Simulator: Human Relations from Owlchemy Labs. For anyone tracking the final sprint toward 2026's finish line, this roundup delivers the clearest picture yet of what's actually shaping up versus what's still worrying previewers.
The standout story is unquestionably Marvel's Wolverine. Insomniac has spent the last eight years defining what a superhero game can be — Spider-Man on PS4 remains a benchmark for open-world traversal and combat flow, and both follow-ups refined that formula further. Now the studio is pivoting to a traditional linear AAA action game with Logan, trading Manhattan's skyline for something more focused and, if the preview holds, more brutal. Two and a half hours of hands-on time left the preview author mostly glowing, but with specific reservations that matter for anyone who loved what Insomniac did with Peter Parker.
Ignoring Ghosts of Spider-Man: Wolverine's Bloody Mess
The preview confirms what fans hoped: combat is as violent as a Wolverine game demands. A cleverly implemented Rage Meter adds strategic weight to every encounter, letting Logan unleash devastating finishers when built up. But the comparison to Spider-Man is unavoidable and, in one critical area, unflattering. The preview author noted that Wolverine "doesn't have the same ability to personalize your attacks as Spider-Man." For a studio that built its reputation on expressive, player-driven combat systems, that gap stands out. Spider-Man's gadget loadouts, suit mods, and skill trees let players craft a distinct playstyle; Wolverine's preview build suggests a more prescribed moveset, at least in its opening hours.
Narratively, the game takes a bold swing. The story positions a pre-X-Men Logan working alongside mutants typically portrayed as his adversaries — a fresh angle that immediately distinguishes it from the usual Wolverine fare. The non-combat Lowtown area provides a welcome change of pace, offering character development and what the preview calls "exhale" moments. The hope, explicitly stated, is that the full game delivers more of these breathing spaces. Linear action games live or die by pacing, and Insomniac's track record suggests they understand rhythm, but the preview build only showed so much.
Combat is as violent as you'd want from Wolverine, with a cleverly implemented Rage Meter, but it doesn't have the same ability to personalize your attacks as Spider-Man.
The story is intriguing, offering up a pre-X-Men Logan working alongside a couple of mutants we tend to know as foes.
The non-combat Lowtown area allows for a welcome change-of-pace and chance for character development. We hope the full game has more of these kinds of "exhale" moments.
Star Wars Zero Company’s Shocking Rethink
Bit Reactor's turn-based tactics game faced an uphill perception battle. When revealed, it looked like "XCOM with X-Wings" — a niche within a niche. Ten hours with a near-finished build changed that narrative entirely. The preview describes Zero Company as "extremely approachable for newcomers without sacrificing any of the complexity that more experienced fans might expect," comparing it to a Sarlacc pit: easy to fall into, surprisingly deep. That accessibility matters. The Star Wars brand draws players who have never touched a tactics game, and if the onboarding works, this could be the genre's next breakthrough hit.
Permadeath is optional, but the preview team plans to keep it on, citing the weight and consequence it adds to strategic choices. That's a strong signal about the game's core design — it's built to be played with stakes. The elephant in the room is technical stability. The preview encountered bugs and issues in a build close to launch, with the release date at the end of the month leaving precious little polish time. For a tactics game where a single glitch can wipe an hour of careful positioning, that's a genuine concern.
Seven Years Later, Three Houses Shows Its Age
Intelligent Systems returns to the world of Fire Emblem: Three Houses after a seven-year absence. Fortune's Weave carries clear structural DNA from its predecessor but builds outward in ways that feel purposeful rather than iterative. The preview highlights a deliberate effort to front-load individual heroes' stories, a structural shift that pays off early — the author found several new additions they're "very fond of" within just a few chapters per hero.
The Blaze Arts system introduces a risk/reward combat layer that adds texture to encounters. But the save-game system draws criticism: hopping between story paths is now possible, yet the save structure might frustrate completionists trying to see everything. Fire Emblem players have always wrestled with permadeath and branching narratives; a save system that fights the player's curiosity is a regression worth flagging.
Job Simulator 2 Looks Surprising Dull
Owlchemy Labs has stripped the VR requirement from Job Simulator, delivering a flat-screen multiplayer workplace sim where you play as an anthropomorphized CRT monitor. The premise is exactly as absurd as it sounds. Office shenanigans remain wild and funny in multiplayer, which is the core appeal. The lingering question is variety and replayability — the preview couldn't determine how much the full game offers beyond its opening hours. For a comedy game, longevity is the hardest metric to judge pre-launch.
Across all four previews, a pattern emerges: games leaning into accessibility without dumbing down (Zero Company), games wrestling with their predecessor's legacy (Wolverine vs. Spider-Man), games iterating on beloved formulas while stumbling on quality-of-life details (Fortune's Weave), and games finally shedding hardware constraints to reach wider audiences (Job Simulator). The holiday sprint is underway, and if this week is any indication, the line between "polished gem" and "fascinating flawed ambition" will be thinner than ever.
