Marvel’s Wolverine: Ferocious combat in a linear package

It is only natural to expect a large, open world game featuring everyone’s favourite X-Man, Wolverine. Given Insomniac Games’ track record of making three excellent Spider-man open world games, Wolverine is quite different. It is a bloody, visceral, action-packed rollercoaster ride akin to Call of Duty. So, before going in, it is important to temper your expectations and that is where Wolverine is at its most enjoyable.

Completely sidestepping the normal X-Men timelines, Wolverine is set in its own alternate reality and follows the shadowy Team X. Comprising mutant operatives Sabretooth and Mystique, this version of the black-ops team is led by Dr. Nathanial Essex, who comic fans will recognise as Mr. Sinister. There is no Magneto or Professor X here, instead mutants are being actively hunted by Bolivar Trask, for his infernal experiments. 

Freed from the shackles of being tied to the movies or past games, Wolverine powers through with its own world and narrative. Logan, aka Wolverine, is excellently portrayed, from his wild man origins to an angry hero who clearly hides a lot of pain behind his expressive eyes as he slashes through the story with blind ferocity.

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This narrative is a big, fat, bloody, adamantium clad freight train that is on the rails, even while it feels a bit restrictive, as you are led by the hand from one section to another, with cutscenes in the middle. It almost feels like the first God of War games, but this is slightly more committed to its linearity.

Wolverine’s combat system is fast and furious, blending the tried and tested Spiderman formula, with a healthy dash of a Sekiro-like parry system. Though, the parries are more stylish and cinematically handled, and in many fights with other famous villains from the X-Men universe, it has Wolverine duck, roll and parry to survive. Successful parries not only reward you with free hits, but also feel excellent.

It is a fighting system that is fun, and easy to get a feel of. There is the lunge mechanic, which lets you close distances extremely fast, making it the single best move to turn the tables against most of the bosses. Logan is quite a crouching, little guy in this game, and it seems everyone else towers over him. What he loses in height, he makes up in sheer speed and ferocity. 

Logan’s ability is his healing factor, and while it may seem he is invincible, the game handles it well. He can take an incredible amount of punishment, and his health bar depletes fast, but it also fills up as he pours his rage into attacking. Which means if you do certain attacks right, you gain back your health. Much like in Sekiro, you have one chance to come back, by quick healing Logan which is a puzzling mechanic, because there is still the death and restart sequence.

Instead, why not have Logan keep on reviving, which would have been closer to X-lore? There is also the usual super metre, in this case Logan’s rage metre, which when filled, will send him into a killing frenzy. 

Wolverine is not a difficult game; it is challenging in its combat sequences, but it never feels overwhelming. It is extremely tightly scripted, and where it may unravel at the seams is its repetitive combat. The game keeps throwing the same cyborg enemies for you to chop up all the time, which feels like it is meant to pad the game. While combat is fun, it becomes tedious when the same sequence of bad guys attack you. There is always a shield, a sword and some sort of gun enemy, to let you execute those same sequences of parry, attack and kick. 

The true focus of the game is its cinematic narrative. To break up the heavy adrenaline-fuelled action scenes, there are some quiet storytelling sequences as well as stealth hunt sections that make use of Logan’s keen animal-like senses. Of course, there is one design choice that has already become a meme — the blue, gas-like trails that Logan has to follow when tracking enemies. 

Quiet emotional sequences are always welcome, but there is always a sense the game is hitting the brakes, after getting your blood up. As a result, you cannot concentrate or feel that emotion for the quiet ones, because you have just carved up some bad guys like a shawarma rotisserie. Angry games such as the newer God of Wars balance these emotion and adrenaline sequences really well. Nonetheless, the game does hit a few key emotional high points and nails them. 

Wolverine looks way better than the trailers in the graphic department. The gore is absolutely off the charts, from the metal ribs showing on damaged Logan, to the generous buckets of blood as you lop off limbs or casually stick your claws into waves of meat puppet enemies. There is a satisfying weight and friction with each hit, and the encounters with bosses are peak entertainment with incredible sound design that takes advantage of your spatial audio headphones. 

Marvel’s Wolverine is a game that you will play and be done with in no time once you have finished Logan’s story. It could have given you a bit more freedom, the way God of War, the Norse one, does with its large levels, rather than locking you down to rails and throwing a lot of enemy waves at you.

That said, it is a bloody good story, with an emphasis on ‘bloody’ and truly explores the tortured hero that would make fans happy with the ground it covers.

Published – September 12, 2026 01:26 pm IST