Marvel’s Wolverine is a great video game. If such a thing could be looked up in the dictionary, you’d find Logan and his bared claws staring back.

In fact, I can’t remember a time when our own review scoring policy has described a game better:

"An accomplished experience, these titles excel in crucial areas, mitigating any shortcomings encountered elsewhere. A game awarded this score may have an outstanding gameplay loop or an incredibly compelling story. Other releases awarded this score may be content confidently re-treading familiar ground."

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That is exactly what Marvel’s Wolverine is: it swaps the open world structure of previous Insomniac titles for a linear, focused experience all about action. It will take the time to slow down and live in the moment, with quieter scenes of dialogue and character development. It also delivers excellent performances and a nice variety of settings.

However, that’s all in service of fleshing out a title tuned for combat. You play this game to tear enemies limb from limb over and over again — that’s what it leans all the way into and excels at.

It’s the ultimate Wolverine simulator with the mask on; it’s without it where the PS5 exclusive falls short.

Set before the X-Men have been established, Logan is rescued from a life in the wilderness by Nathaniel Essex, a former teammate, to help stop a plot to kidnap fellow mutants. Essex is providing them a sanctuary away from the prejudice of society, so the plot sets up a push and pull of rescuing mutants while trying to end the abductions.

As well as a present-day story, the game also explores Logan’s past. It begins with quick flashbacks and audio logs from optional Nightmare Doors, but becomes more pronounced as the plot develops.

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Together, the two storylines merge for a roughly 20-hour campaign full of fast-paced and gory action. Insomniac has embraced the blood and decapitation tied to Logan’s claws by crafting a combat system that revels in the human butchery. Light exploration and traversal break up a lot of the missions, allowing Logan to track scents to notable objects and harness his superhuman strength to jump great distances — but it’s never too long before the claws are out again.

Without a stamina meter to worry about, Wolverine lands cuts and impalements about as fast as you can press the attack button. There are some very simple combos to learn, though most of the variety comes from special attacks that unlock as you progress the campaign. As such, it’s not a Devil May Cry experience where you’re mastering complex attacks and achieving crazy combos; the game remains relatively straightforward and approachable throughout.

Instead, it sources that kind of swagger from takedowns and team combos. Brutal finishing animations sever body parts while Jean Grey uses her telekinetic powers to set up easy kills for Logan.

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These deaths add a lot of flair to the combat system, creating nice transitions between the general loop of enemy kills and taking a second for a close-up slow-motion slaughter. They leave environments drenched in blood and guts; the camera never cuts from an especially gory decapitation during both gameplay and cutscenes.

While I found the skill tree somewhat limited, offering only a handful of new moves to learn, the core mechanic is so strong that it comfortably carries the title from start to finish.

Following a mostly linear path through levels, there’ll be short breaks for conversation and side tasks. In reality, though, Marvel’s Wolverine is one combat encounter after another, and that’s what it unquestionably nails.

What it doesn’t is the story binding those scenarios and missions together.

Logan’s quest to help mutants does develop and the supporting cast helps with personal motives, but what it builds to simply isn’t that interesting. Cool set-pieces, chase sequences, and a few twists make the build-up a lot more gripping. However, the pay-off at the end and the narrative taken as a whole never particularly thrilled me.

I’m far more of a Spider-Man fan than Wolverine, so I’ll concede some of the more vague references will have gone over my head. I know the broad strokes, though, and this telling of Logan’s past combined with present-day events was lacking impact for me.

Some pretty poorly presented story elements don't help it either. Up until the second half of the campaign, the plotline revealing Logan’s past is mostly kept to side activities called Nightmare Doors. These are combat and traversal challenges, but finishing them unlocks an audio log describing one of Logan’s memories.

They’re presented as white text on a dark translucent background that Logan reads from — they look borderline unfinished and the reading stops if you exit off the screen. Considering how important these optional logs are, I was surprised to see them so poorly presented. They feel rushed and put together at the last second.

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Liam McIntyre at least brings them to life with a wonderful performance that embodies every aspect of the Wolverine character. From the shouting and the grunting to the personal and touching moments, McIntyre nails the extremes and everything in between.

Troy Baker as Nathaniel Essex, Krizia Bajos playing Jean Grey, and Brett Gipson portraying Sabreooth all deliver standout performances too. Despite the story they’ve brought to life not being all that entertaining, their vocals and motion capture are some of the best you’ll experience all year.

The campaign is set across a few different countries, including Canada, Japan, and the fictional island of Madripoor, and within them are varied locations that help each level feel fresh.

You’ll explore a slick and neon-lit Tokyo one mission, and then the next will set itself in ancient ruins near a volcano. There’s a good amount of variety that extends to the set-pieces and vehicle sections; motorbike sequences work and control well, while scenes aboard an out-of-control aeroplane thrill.

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The one problem is the on-rails nature you’d expect in these sequences often extends to general gameplay, creating a surprisingly restrictive experience at times.

Marvel’s Wolverine is a linear game that wants to guide you to your next objective with on-screen markers, but sometimes, it will let you explore a slightly larger area. The edges of these places aren’t hidden well; I encountered countless invisible walls that blocked my path when it wouldn’t really make sense. Logan can perform 30-foot jumps in some missions, but then can’t hop over a police car in another.

A few levels also feature fades to black if you stray too far from the objective, despite the fact they could be freely explored only minutes before. I think you just have to accept Marvel’s Wolverine for what it is: a strictly linear experience that demands you play it the way it wants you to.

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It's resolute in that commitment, only allowing customisation through Logan’s suits and claws, creating a pretty simple character build via Adaptations, and your PS5 graphical settings.

I played through the game on a PS5 Pro set to the Performance Pro mode, which runs the title at 60 frames-per-second while outputting the visuals of the standard Fidelity mode and then improving them through PSSR (PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution).

There’s also a Fidelity Pro setting providing 30FPS gameplay with advanced ray-tracing capabilities, and base PS5 console players can toggle between performance and graphical optimisations.

Save for a few bugs that required a checkpoint restart, my playthrough ran excellently and was matched with outstanding graphics. At times, especially in the face models, Marvel’s Wolverine represents the best visuals possible in 2026. It looks absolutely incredible.

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The framerate keeps pace with the action and retains all the details of a bloodbath Logan leaves in his wake. From day one, the game looks and runs exactly as you’d want it to.

A decent amount of PS5 DualSense controller support makes it more interactive, too. Haptic feedback enhances vibrations and proves effective during pivotal scenes, while adaptive triggers provide a touch of resistance to Wolverine's attacks. It's not the best implementation I've ever come across, but what's there works well.

It all comes together to make Insomniac’s altered vision a reality: the developer evidently wanted to do something different after three open world titles, and Marvel’s Wolverine is exactly that. Warts and all, it embraces combat and designs the entire thing around the next enemy to tear in half. And, at the end of it, the game is yet another sublime superhero adventure — you just have to meet it on its terms.

Conclusion

Marvel’s Wolverine ends the open world streak at Insomniac for an intentional and linear superhuman title that revels in its gory, intense combat system. The campaign structured around it can be overly restrictive and the story quite dull, but as a mission guides you from one fight to the next, it lets the bloodshed do the talking. With superb visuals, amazing character performances, and nice location variety, Marvel’s Wolverine sheds its flaws for an endlessly enjoyable superhero experience.