I am very disappointed.
Wolverine is a game that I have been anticipating from the day it was announced. I expected it to be a Game of the Year contender and never once doubted that. I love Insomniac and their games. I had a blast with Spider-Man 2 and still think that game is fantastic despite its flaws in writing towards the third act. So I am genuinely heartbroken to say that I found Wolverine to be one of the biggest gaming disappointments I have ever gone through. It is a game that I desperately wanted to like, to enjoy, and to be a fan of. But Insomniac has unfortunately entirely missed the mark in all the important aspects, being gameplay, story, and art direction. It is a game that feels like it went through significant development hell, ultimately landing firmly as one of the most mediocre games I've played in a while. Wolverine is not a bad game, just a very mediocre one.
STORY
Wolverine's narrative feels like a confused mess of ideas and concepts that don't gel together. It feels like there was a core story here at some point that was genuinely gripping and emotional, a story that wants you so badly to care for its characters and their emotions, but that story is completely buried by some of the most baffling decisions, inconsistent tones, complete out-of-character moments, and a plot that, by the end, comes together in a way that feels like a complete misunderstanding of Wolverine in general.
The main issue with Wolverine's story is how disjointed it feels. There are points where the narrative pivots so hard, it feels like you are suddenly playing a different game. There is one particular moment where a character dies and Wolverine gears up to take revenge in a seriously emotional way, only for the revenge mission itself to be filled with jokes, one-liners, and a tone shift so strong, it gave me actual whiplash. That character death is forgotten almost as quickly as it happened, to a character that the writers fumble desperately trying to get you to care about shortly before this happens.
The writers at Insomniac straight up do not understand what "cool" dialogue is. So often, Wolverine or a side character will attempt to say something that sounds cool to make them seem badass, but it falls so flat that I end up rolling my eyes every single time or cringing. It is the kind of dialogue that is the opposite of what they had in their Spider-Man games, and at a point, I just wished characters would speak less.
The pacing is something that needs to be studied as a great example of how not to pace a story. A huge portion in the middle focuses on Logan's search for a friend, a friend who barely had any screen time beforehand and so I did not care about. Characters appear and then entirely disappear for hours on end, making the whole story feels like it is a byproduct of severe rewrites and scope cuts. There just is not enough screen time given to the people that Logan apparently cares for aside from Jean Gray which brings me to what I liked about this story. I actually enjoyed Logan and Jean's relationship a lot, as these were the only scenes where emotion felt real and stakes were actually taken seriously. Everyone else does not get nearly enough dialogue to actually be compelling. This is especially bad with Team X themselves and Jean's mutant friends.
And the little that the story had going for it, with its fairly compelling villain and character conflict with Wolverine, is entirely eradicated with a third act so awful, it feels like the writers just wanted an excuse to be able to start over in the sequel, as they realized they created a story that they'd rather be forgotten than be important in any shape or form to a sequel involving Logan. It is truly unfortunate because the actors absolutely bring it here, even with the awful script. Every actor and performance is top-notch, but the script just let them down. Whatever went wrong in the writing of this game, I truly pray does not transfer to Insomniac's future projects. I'll forever mourn the tone they teased in the original 2021 reveal, because that is not the story we got here. I did not enjoy Wolverine's narrative at all.
GAMEPLAY
Wolvenine's gameplay is not bad. It can be quite fun for a while, but overall, there is not enough depth here to support an entire game. The first issues start with the combat. This is a combat system that starts off in a poor place. All its interesting mechanics are unlocked around the last quarter of the game, making the combat a complete slog for much of the game, as all the cool abilities that make experimentation possible are locked. This is one of the poorest and most unnecessary implementations of a skill tree I have seen. What Wolverine plays like at its end should've been where the game starts and then builds off of.
Another issue with combat is how attacks don't feel heavy enough. I always compare games to the newest God of War games as a prime example of how over-the-shoulder melee combat should feel in these story games. Hitting enemies in Wolverine often lacks weight. It feels like you're slashing at damage sponges rather than cutting through enemies. It is not a question of difficulty, but rather of how powerful a character like Wolverine should feel, which he does not come close to the level that I think is necessary in a game like this. Insomniac's Spider-Man games were far more effective at this, and those games have a much more interesting combat loop than this game.
Now, I'd never describe this combat as button mashing. You do plenty of dodging, parrying, and alternating between hits and pouncing for it to be that, but I do think the general lack of interesting combos is a real letdown. It is super strange that combining pounces with attacking doesn't have a ton of alternate attacks, instead giving you basically only one or two real combos in this entire combat system. Overall, the combat is mediocre, with a ton of room for improvement in a sequel.
Stealth is very basic. It is the most simple sneak-in-grass, click-square-to-take-out-enemy gameplay as it gets. Wolverine is not given any mechanics to actually get around enemies or distract them. A simple mechanic like tapping the claws together to lure enemies would've added at least a tiny shred of depth that this system needed. The stealth works, but it's as mediocre as it gets. I ended up avoiding stealth as much as possible because, as many issues as the combat has, it is at least far more involved and fun than this stealth system.
The traversal system is also a strange one. You'd think a character like Wolverine would have a pretty involved system of wall runs, jumping between walls, and generally just being very agile, but you only get a jump button, and that's it. The traversal is just holding forward and pressing jump, with no real thought put into it. For Insomniac, a company that gave us the amazing traversal of Spider-Man and Sunset Overdrive, I found this to be another deeply disappointing aspect of the game and to be just mediocre.
THE HANDHOLDING
The handholding in Wolverine has been a huge subject of conversation, and it's a criticism I fully relate with. Insomniac seems terrified of the idea that you can get lost for even a split second in mostly linear corridors, with Logan constantly remarking on the current objective. It feels like the game is designed in a way that assumes the player has no actual brain to think with. There are so many guardrails and dialogue to help you navigate, on top of the controversial scent trail, that in a couple of sections, it felt like it was an elaborate prank. The QTEs are unnecessary, and I think Insomniac would've been better off cutting these rather than using them in the manner they did here, which makes them impossible to fail.
There is a point here where you are told to follow wires to a box that you must destroy. As soon as you are told this, a pop-up appears telling you that you have to press R3, which has the game mark the box for you.
I've never really seen this level of handholding before in any game. I got plenty lost in Sony's other exclusives, like Last of Us and Uncharted. Resonance: Plague Tale just came out last week, and I spent a ton of time exploring its fairly linear levels and getting lost. Even Insomniac's Ratchet & Clank games, which are made for children, are quite open usually and don't guide you anywhere near this much. I have no idea what went wrong here, but the handholding in Wolverine is something that should never happen in a game again.
GRAPHICS & ART DIRECTION
What should have been a consistent visual feast for the eyes feels let down by its decision to guardrail the game into these tight corridor environments that all blend together. But it does look gorgeous when it opens up to wide cityscapes.
FINAL VERDICT
I don't think Wolverine is a bad game, but I do think Wolverine is extremely mediocre and one of the most disappointing games I've ever played. It is clear that so much of this game went through development hell, and so much of its most interesting mechanics were stripped back at some point. Maybe when the original director left in 2024, because for the most part, this does feel like a game that was made in 2 years rather than 5+ years.
While patches can fix the handholding issues, not much can fix a mediocre combat system, basic stealth, and a storyline that feels like it was stitched together last minute. I hope they make a sequel to Wolverine and take in all the feedback. I still truly believe that Insomniac is capable of making an incredible game here if they listen to all the feedback surrounding this one. So that in a number of years, we'll be talking about how much better Wolverine 2 is.
WOLVERNE - 6/10 - MEDIOCRE