Insomniac Games’ rendition of the 5’3 Canadian hairball has left myself frustrated and disappointed with what is ultimately a very ‘meh’ game.
About five years ago now, Insomniac Games revealed a teaser trailer for Marvel’s Wolverine — their next superhero undertaking after their success with Spider-Man made for the Playstation 5. It depicted none other than the Wolverine at a bar, presumably fresh out of a fight, having a drink before going for a round two. It was a short trailer, but nonetheless had many people instantly in anticipation, primarily because Insomniac handling Wolverine was a no-brainer after the success of Spider-Man (2018). Now, after all that time and a rocky road here for the studio, its disappointing to say that this game does not capture anything like their previous work, and is just painfully simple on every level of its design.
Look, I’ll say this first. I had fun playing this game. The combat is visceral and flashy if not a little basic and repetitive, there are some cool moments throughout the story, a killer performance from fellow Aussie Liam McIntyre as Wolverine, and absolutely stunning visuals to wrap it all up. However, this game is so jarringly afraid to give anything within it complexity that I’ve ended up frustrated, and I’d make that point on basically every level; the combat, the level design, and worst of all its story. There is no risk here, and while I’m sure it isn’t in actuality — this game feels passionless. For a product asking for a hefty $125AUD on the Playstation’s digital storefront, we should expect better from Sony and Insomniac.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
‘Marvel’s Wolverine’ is a linear action-adventure game, this means the player is to be guided along the levels with action encounters, light exploration, and cinematics, both story beats and set pieces full of spectacle. I’d say firstly that I don’t mind this as a game philosophy, allowing the developers to curate the experience of gameplay and set the pace themselves rather than something like an open-world title that lets you frolic in gardens while the world ends. Despite this, I find Wolverine’s version of this to be too claustrophobic and that this ‘curated’ experience is one that ultimately fails the character fantasy of Wolverine. The scent trail is one aspect of this people have been vocal about, but personally I don’t care for that. For me, it is the constant use of white paint, telling you what you can and cannot climb or manoeuvre around… Wolverine by the way. The game lets you climb up white painted trees, but a wall? Nope, not unless it has a white painted stub to hold on to. This is my biggest problem with the level design, especially when the maps open up a little. From the creators of Spider-Man, you’d expect them to understand that traversal is key to expressing what it feels like to play as this character. And while he is no acrobat like Spidey, Wolverine should feel animalistic and feral when getting around or trying to chase someone down. This bleeds into every other aspect of the gameplay, where it fails to capture what it feels like to be Wolverine as I said, failing the fantasy and the whole point of the game.
Combat is where I probably found the most enjoyment. It is very simple, you have a few abilities, like two combos to do, and then the ‘berserker rage’ mode that you build up which is honestly the best feeling part of the game, where you can begin tearing through enemies like Swiss Cheese (ball knowledge). It is bloody and violent, and playing on the hardest difficulty kept the game in a solid push and pull of frustration and satisfaction in each encounter. All that being said though, it feels like there needed to be a little more. Its a mix of disappointment with the actual combat tools, and the enemy design being so stale throughout the whole game. This game could’ve definitely breathed more with letting the player do all kinds of combos in a more hack-and-slash style of gameplay, or even just doing what Spider-Man did if it had proper traversal, letting you use walls to perch and gain momentum to pin a bigger enemy down. It seriously just lacks expression like that, and again like the level design, feels claustrophobic because of how restricted Wolverine is. But I do want to reiterate, the combat is pretty decent and by far this game’s strongest part — though that isn’t a very high bar anyway.
The story however, is definitely my biggest sour point with this experience. I am all for adaptations taking their creative liberties with their source material and with comics there is so much room to do that. This game however, somehow manages to fail in adapting anything about these characters, and mushes them all into a mess of plot that has little chance of engaging anybody who plays through it. The performances in the game are pretty good, the motion capture is solid, I love Liam McIntyre as Wolverine, Troy Baker as Nathaniel Essex is really strong in the role and the most interesting character in the story by far. But this writing on a whole here, is just so lacklustre. I think the strongest thing I can point to in why it feels this way is the lack of complexity as I mentioned. In a story about the plight of the mutants, Logan, Jean, Mystique, Sabertooth all these characters that usually have a bit of grit to them, are far too soft in a world that is very cruel to them. Its not that its “totally awful worst story ever made”, its just incredibly forgettable and does nothing with a cast that you could absolutely tell a gripping story with that Insomniac’s writers just couldn’t do. Again, frustrating. Especially towards the end, when so many plot threads are hanging about and things are being introduced that on paper are cool concepts but just leaves you feeling indifferent about it because of how unsatisfying the story is up to that point.
Image Source: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Its been wild seeing the response to the game online, from reviewers absolutely bombing it, a few players taking up arms in defence to swear by it, and of course the sweaty basement dwellers crying over ‘woke’. This game honestly was always going to face backlash, its just a shame the product couldn’t speak for itself by actually being good. I’m not too sure where Insomniac goes from here, specifically because it seems like the criticisms pointed out in their past work just seem to be getting worse over time instead of them taking it to heart. Then there the question of Sony and the whims of their investor overlords, if Insomniac will be able to carry on handling these IPs. Personally, I’m not even sure what I would want. While an X-Man game is a dream, I’m not sure current Insomniac are the ones to handle it, at least not without changes to how they approach making their games.
As for my ‘rating’ of the game — I don’t totally recommend it, unless you’re into Wolverine and don’t mind something simple that will in no way move you. Gaming equivalent of doomscrolling, but its like mildly engaging. 5 out of 10.
That’s really all I have to say, I’m left feeling whelmed and disappointed this wasn’t the game I was hoping for, and kind of baffled about what justifies this game’s price tag.
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