Marvel’s Wolverine is a 2026 game developed by Insomniac Studios and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It’s an action-adventure game with a linear storyline and fairly violent gameplay, but that fits for the character. It’s set within the same universe as the Insomniac Spider-Man games, but does not connect directly with anything happening in those games, though references were made. The storyline within this game is an original story that does not follow the traditional comic stories of Logan, but includes some X-Men villains and maintains the relationship tones Logan traditionally has with certain characters. It is not open world either, but was clearly originally designed to be.

In my review, I’m going to discuss my thoughts on the original storyline, how the game played, and overall feedback on the experience. I will NOT be comparing this to the Spider-Man games, because it is not the same type of character, so it cannot be logically compared. This is NOT a spoiler-free review!

Who Am I?

Wolverine is one of Marvel Comics’ most popular characters, with a story almost everyone knows. He’s been featured in a bunch of different animated series, video games, and maintains one actor across all films. His characterization is fairly consistent across all media types, as is his character design (excluding Hugh Jackman’s height). In this game, his character design and style match perfectly with the Wolverine from the comics, and the voice actor (Liam McIntyre) did a great job in his portrayal.

There was a lot of hype initially for this game, and people set their expectations high. Unfortunately, due to the cyber-attack Insomniac faced, a lot of original content for this game was leaked and they made the decision to make major changes to keep it original. I think some of the changes they made were also based on feedback from what people saw with the leaks. This left people comparing what the game could have been to what it actually was. A lot of people also compared it to the Spider-Man games, which was an unfair comparison.

A few changes included eliminating the open-world aspect, I believe some changes to the story itself, and the removal of Jean Grey gameplay. Removing the open-world did shorten the game, but they could always expand that with DLC if they wanted. The removal of Jean Gray gameplay was a loss though, because it would have been cool to play as another powerful mutant. The rumors were that they did this because of the backlash from the MJ gameplay in the Spider-Man games, but MJ is a useless character while Jean Grey is an omega-level mutant, so it’s not the same at all.

The Nature of the Beast

This game really embraces the true nature of Wolverine with how volatile his fighting style is. All the fighting is head-on, since his weapons are attached to his knuckles, so you really have to embrace charging into each fight with sheer determination. There are opportunities for stealth, but it’s not his strong suit so it’s easier to just run into a fight most of the time. You’ll learn different fighting techniques as the game goes on and be able to utilize them in most situations.

Wolverine is well-known for having a healing factor, but you can’t have an immortal character in a game because then there is no challenge to it. So, they connected his healing factor to time and damage. He can heal on his own if he’s left to heal, or he will heal as he defeats enemies. A rage burst will also fully heal him and maintain that during the burst. The damage he takes is demonstrated in his body, getting covered in blood, open wounds, losing hair, and at times you can see his adamantium bones. Whatever he is wearing also gets torn up, which was a cool detail.

As the game progresses, you unlock different outfits that you can wear at any time. There are a lot of outfits from different comic variations, some custom to this game, and a few from other games that change his texture rendering as well. You can change his claws too, either to match the outfit or to have a unique look.

One gameplay-specific issue people had was how his advanced senses were portrayed, claiming it made things too easy. His hearing meant you could hear the low hum of chests and they would ping blue in nearby locations. His scent usually had a trail you could follow or he would comment on smelling something nearby, prompting you to look. I didn’t really have an issue with these things, because his senses had to be portrayed somehow, but I think because each level was so linear, it took away some of the challenge of locating things.

A Rewritten Story

As mentioned before, this game featured an original storyline for Wolverine, which was a bold choice that not enough people seem to appreciate. There are a lot of great Wolverine stories, and this does include several of them, such as Team X and the Sentinels from Trask, but the surprise of not knowing what’s going to happen adds to the game experience. You unlock memories as you go, and each time you think you know which story Logan’s memories are referring to, they throw in something that makes you question if his memories are genuine. The way everything was tied in together at the end was done well, and I enjoyed the twist even though I called it pretty early on in his interactions with Jean.

The world doesn’t know about mutants, but there is no Charles Xavier there to help build a home for them. Instead, it’s Nathaniel Essex, otherwise known as Sinister, who wants to create more mutants and wipe out humanity. He created Team X and has them go on missions to stop people, like Trask, who are trying to wipe out mutants, but they don’t know what his true desires are. That is when Jean Grey joins.

Traditionally, Jean is dragged down by Scott in the comics and never gets a chance to explore her true potential (yes, including the Dark Phoenix saga). But in this story, there is no Scott to drag her down, and she fully embraces who she is and how she feels for Logan. They also revealed at the end that, because she’s the Phoenix, she is reborn everytime she dies, but she doesn’t recall her other lives until the end when her true power is unlocked. This comes at a cost though, as we learn it always has, because she must lose Logan by wiping his memories to keep him safe from Apocalypse.

Though Apocalypse is one of my least favorite X-Men villains, his tie-in to the story gave Jean the chance to unlock her true potential and added an emotional challenge to Logan’s character. The ending showed Logan’s journey moving forward, and if they do make a second game it would be a great chance to embrace the open world aspect and give him a lot of smaller stories to build up his character.

A History Doomed to Repeat Itself

Overall, I did enjoy the game because it looked great, I liked the original story, and for once, Jean wasn’t completely useless. The voice actors were also incredible, with a special shout-out to Troy Baker who plays an EXCELLENT villain. I do wish this game had been open world and had Jean gameplay, but that didn’t make it bad. I would absolutely play a second one just to see where the story goes!

Thanks for reading! If you liked this post and want to see more of what I’ve written, check out my full blog here or follow my social media for updates! Bluesky & Instagram & Threads & Pinterest.

Other Games to Check Out:

Here’s a list of some of the other games Wolverine is featured in that are worth checking out. He has a different design in each and they’re all pretty cool.

• Marvel Rivals
• Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls
• Marvel’s Midnight Suns
• Marvel vs Capcom (check out my review here)

All game content and information is based on my personal gaming experience. The images were taken by me. I fact-checked game details with the sources below.

Sources:

• Game Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marvel%27s_Wolverine
• Sony Interactive Entertainment: https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/marvels-wolverine/