Marvel's Wolverine Nails Logan But Struggles With Shallow Combat Systems

After spending a couple of hours with Marvel's Wolverine at PlayStation's London offices, the verdict is clear: Insomniac Games understands Logan better than almost any studio has understood a licensed superhero. The character portrayal — from the dense, dynamic arm hair that sparked a fervid online reaction to the exquisite facial rendering that captures every gruff micro-expression — is note-perfect. Liam McIntyre's voice performance brings a tenderness beneath the savagery that Hugh Jackman's films only occasionally reached, and seeing Logan as the "short king" he should be, barely coming up to Sabertooth's waist, feels like a long-overdue correction. For fans who have waited decades for a game that actually gets Wolverine right, this is the one.

The preview build covered the opening section and the end of the first act, revealing a globe-trotting adventure set before the formation of the X-Men. Insomniac has positioned itself as custodian of its own Marvel timeline — spanning the Spider-Man games, this Wolverine title, and a reported future X-Men game — allowing the studio to keep the focus squarely on Logan. The story opens with Team X, a mutant superteam led by Nathaniel Essex (voiced by Troy Baker with what sounds like a Paul Bettany inflection) rather than Charles Xavier, on a mission to exfiltrate Essex from Bolivar Trask's heavily fortified compound. Trask, inventor of the Sentinels, serves as the early antagonist, and a confrontation with a prototype Sentinel at his Madripoor HQ highlights both the game's cinematic ambition and its mechanical growing pains.

Wolverine's First True PS5 Moment

Marvel's Wolverine is a linear action game developed by Insomniac Games and published by PlayStation, releasing exclusively on PS5 on September 15. The studio has deliberately avoided the open-world template that dominates modern AAA design, instead crafting a globe-trotting adventure that barrels forward with Logan's heedless energy. Think Uncharted without the puzzles and pace changes, or the original Greek-era God of War — bloodthirsty, focused, and unapologetically violent. This is a combat-forward experience with a strong narrative pull, stripping away feature creep in favor of a lean, character-driven campaign.

The decision to set the game before the X-Men's formation pays immediate dividends. Without the sprawling mutant roster to service, the narrative zeroes in on Logan's relationships with Sabertooth, Mystique, Jean Grey, and especially Essex, who occupies a Professor X-meets-Magneto mentor role that feels destined for betrayal. These dynamics are boldly drawn but not superficial, and the downtime sequences in Lowtown — Madripoor's shabby, mutant-friendly district — let those relationships breathe. Drinking whiskey, playing "never have I ever" with Mystique, and arm-wrestling Sabertooth all serve character first, plot second. It's a refreshing approach in a genre that often treats story as connective tissue between set pieces.

Wolverine's Combat Feels Like a Letdown

Insomniac's combat design centers on Wolverine's regeneration, which could have trivialized difficulty but instead creates a compelling risk-reward loop. Logan has a small pool of fast-recharging health and multiple ways to replenish it through combat, making him feel simultaneously vulnerable and unstoppable. The system encourages aggressive play — you build rage and momentum from parrying and threat management into red-mist massacre, and the crescendo of battles is genuinely pleasing. Open upable suits add visual variety, though their mechanical impact remains unclear from the demo.

But depth is where the cracks show. The combat lacks the layered complexity of Bloodborne, and other gameplay modes are executed well enough but very simply. Stealth reduces to basic stalk-and-kill loops, traversal offers little beyond forward momentum, and the Nightmare Door challenges — abstract levels open uping nuggets of backstory — lack design flair. Even the Sentinel boss fight at Trask's Madripoor HQ feels mildly clunky; giant robots and a stocky claw-wielder don't make natural mechanical bedfellows. Every downtime distraction in Lowtown ultimately engineers Logan a step closer to his next fight. You cannot get off the Wolverine train.

Wolverine's Claws Are Sharper Than Ever

The fidelity investment is evident everywhere you look. Mike Daly, the game director, admitted the team spent significant development time on Wolverine's body hair — "getting a really high-fidelity, dense hair with sort of a good groom that also had good dynamics" — and the result is startlingly realistic in motion. Facial animation matches that standard, capturing McIntyre's performance with nuance that elevates every story beat. The PS5 hardware enables dense geometry and lighting that sells Madripoor's neon-soaked grime and Lowtown's lived-in squalor without a loading screen in sight, consistent with Insomniac's track record on Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

"getting a really high-fidelity, dense hair with sort of a good groom that also had good dynamics"

Mike Daly, Game Director

Audio design reinforces the character work. The sound of claws extending — that iconic snikt — carries weight, and combat impacts feel visceral without veering into gratuitous noise. Baker's Essex performance stands out; his uncanny Paul Bettany cadence lends the character an unsettling refinement that contrasts sharply with Logan's roughness. The score, while not the focus of the preview, leans into the globe-trotting spy-thriller tone established by the Team X premise. Technical performance held steady throughout the hands-on session, with no noticeable frame drops during the Sentinel encounter or the more crowded Hand ninja skirmishes.

Combat Feels Like a Half-Baked X-Men’s Operational

The shallowness of the game's systems is the preview's biggest concern. Room after room of henchmen to chop into pieces may not sustain interest through a full campaign, no matter how satisfying the moment-to-moment combat feels initially. The Nightmare Door challenges expose this most clearly — they open up narrative nuggets but offer little mechanical variety, feeling more like combat arenas with a lore veneer than designed encounters. Stealth and traversal are functional but forgettable, lacking the depth to serve as meaningful pace-changers between fights.

The Sentinel boss fight underscores a structural tension: Wolverine's kit is built for humanoid combat, and scaling it up to a giant robot reveals the limitations. The encounter felt mildly clunky, a mismatch of mechanics that the final game will need to address if similar set pieces recur. More broadly, the linear design's refusal to let players breathe — every Lowtown interaction funnels toward the next combat zone — risks fatigue. Insomniac's sure grip on character is admirable, but a 15-hour campaign of "forward, fight, forward, fight" demands more variety than the preview suggested exists.

Marvel's Wolverine releases on September 15 exclusively for PlayStation 5. For players who value character authenticity above all else, Insomniac has delivered the definitive Logan experience — gruff, tender, violent, and visually stunning. But the game's long-term appeal hinges on whether the studio has more mechanical variety up its sleeve than the preview revealed. The story setup is fascinating, the character work is artful, and the combat foundation is solid. Now it needs the depth to match.