Key Takeaways
- Insomniac’s Marvel's Wolverine trades Spider-Man’s open-world heroics for a linear, adults-only action game built around Logan’s brutal claw combat.
- Its modern-day story pits Team X against Bolivar Trask, Omega Red, and the Sentinels, with Nathaniel Essex and Logan’s unlockable traumatic memories adding intrigue ahead of the PlayStation 5 launch on September 15, 2026.
Marvel's Wolverine, coming exclusively to PlayStation 5 on September 15, 2026, is one of the year's most anticipated games, generating hype for its melee claw combat and uncompromising depiction of violence.
This week, developer Insomniac Games gave us two hours to experience the game firsthand. We'll review the game in full as we get closer to launch, but here are our initial impressions.
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This isn’t a Marvel’s Spider-Man clone
Insomniac Games is one of Sony's in-house game development studios, best known for the Marvel's Spider-Man games. Like those games, Marvel's Wolverine is also a third-person action title starring an A-list superhero, incorporating roleplaying elements like unlockable skill trees and dialogue-heavy cutscenes (in fact, Wolverine takes these elements one step further by allowing you to choose your dialogue responses). But despite those superficial similarities, Wolverine is an entirely different animal from Spider-Man in its core gameplay.
Spider-Man was an open-world experience, letting you web-bsling over Manhattan and Queens. This supported Spidey’s characterization as the “friendly, neighborhood” superhero, who targets local gangs, stops petty crimes, and takes on character-building side missions alongside the high-stakes main story. The combat mechanics reinforced this characterization; you had a variety of gadgets and toys to disable and disarm your opponent. And because you were webbing them up—not killing them—defeating your opponents required a cleverer, more thoughtful approach.
Wolverine is a different character—an anti-hero, loner sort less concerned with the public good and more singular in his attention and focus. Thus, you're never really wandering or exploring unless it's to fulfill the high-stakes mission objective. A scenario might appear open-ended, like a rooftop chase in which you traverse a large area. But it's ultimately linear, and it boils down to the same objective every time: Get in close—Rage Meter at its max—and kill everything that moves with extreme prejudice. You go to numerous locations—to Canada, to Japan, to Madripoor—but the objective remains the same.
Combat is the name of the game
The skill trees add some nuance to your game plan; one unlockable allows you to block your face with your claws while running; another unlocks a new melee combo to use during engagements. You can also unlock cooldown special moves—like the Tornado Spin—and map them to your control pad, similar to how you mapped your suit powers in Spider-Man 2.
Stealth exists, but it isn’t a viable strategy; you can’t divert people's attention or disrupt their sightlines. You use stealth as a way to get the jump on your opponent prior to the Big Fight, not as a means to avoid the Big Fight entirely. You’ll still have the Big Fight, minus one or two enemies, regardless.
Everything exceptional about this game centers on its combat. The visuals are where the game flies highest. Wolverine is gritty, gory, and disgusting, and I mean that as a compliment. The damage that Logan takes goes all the way down to his muscles and bones, and waves of enemies get punctured, bruised, and dismembered in vivid fashion.
And if it's all a little much for you, there's an option to turn off all the blood spurts and dismemberments. That won't change what happens in the pre-rendered cut scenes, of course; this is an 'adults only' game, through and through. But the squeamish might appreciate the customization.
Executing this carnage is straightforward. Barring the special moves, there are two attack buttons, a parry button, and a dodge button, and you pull off more advanced moves by tapping them or pressing them in conjunction with the directionals. Holding down Attack delivers a forward kick that checks the enemy into a wall, and holding Forward and pushing Attack causes Wolverine to launch himself at the nearest opponent.
The story
The story is a classic Marvel tale about mutant discrimination and experimentation, starring Bolivar Trask (creator of the Sentinels) as the Big Bad and Omega Red as his mercenary lackey. The mentor father figure of Wolverine's Team X (which also includes Sabretooth, Mystique, and Jean Grey), is Nathaniel Essex, best known to avid comic fans as supervillain Mr Sinister. He seems like a probable heel turn waiting to happen. Other story elements include Nightmare Doors—optional gameplay trials that unlock traumatic memories from Logan's past. I asked Game Director Mike Daly about when, canon-wise, this story takes place, and he answered that it takes place in modern times, several years after Spider-Man 2.
I grew up loving the arcade beat 'em ups from the '90s, like TMNT, The Simpsons, and Final Fight—even River City Ransom for the NES. And the combat reminds me somewhat of those games—simple and a bit repetitive (lots of mashing the Square button)—but highly engaging for a few hours. There's even a boss fight that reminds me of those classic arcade boss fights; a massive Sentinel fills the screen, whom you have to hit at his weak points to wear down.
A good comparison is Donkey Kong Bananza, which we named one of the best games of 2025. It also had simple, primal pleasures—punch stuff, really hard—and sustained itself on that basic, feel-good mechanic, largely through creative level design.
For two hours, Wolverine was lots of fun. But can Wolverine's combat sustain player interest for an entire playthrough, or will it devolve into monotony? The skill upgrade trees need to add complexity without sacrificing the visceral satisfaction of seeing Wolverine tear people to shreds. A variety of enemies could also help.
We'll know once we get to play the entire game. Stay tuned.
