Action Declawed: Insomniac's Wolverine Is a Bloody Bore

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Stripped of its graphic gore, Logan's highly anticipated PlayStation 5 exclusive is a hollow, linear slog that forgets to let players actually have fun. I’ll cut to the chase: Insomniac’s PlayStation 5 exclusive Wolverine ($69.99) is a thoroughly middling exp…

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I’ll cut to the chase: Insomniac’s PlayStation 5 exclusive Wolverine ($69.99) is a thoroughly middling experience, a tedious slog, and a game I have zero motivation to ever touch again.

As someone who loved the fluid locomotion and kinetic spectacle of Marvel’s Spider-Man, my expectations were high. But when looking past the graphic dismemberment and the bolder, bloodier presentation, the game underneath the violence is simply mediocre. The spectacle only hides the fact that it’s a shallow, padded-out action game that flat-out refuses to let you actually have fun.

(Credit: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment/PCMag)

The Linear Regression of Insomniac's Freedom

The most baffling disappointment of Wolverine is how it abandons the one thing Insomniac did especially well: world navigation and movement. The open-world freedom that made the Spider-Man games a joy to play is nonexistent here. The entire game is strictly mission-based, locking Logan into rigid, on-rails progression.

The developers try to throw you a bone midway through the game with a semi-open space in Tokyo, but this pales compared with the freedom in Insomniac’s previous titles. It has been reduced to just a few uninspiring city blocks with nothing of substance to do. There is no emergent gameplay: just a checklist of arbitrary chests and mindless collectibles scattered around to artificially lengthen your stay. For a studio that built its modern reputation on superb player traversal, grounding Wolverine in static, empty zones feels like a massive step backward.

(Credit: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment/PCMag)

Thrilling Yap-and-Walk Gameplay

Because you aren't exploring a dynamic world, you are at the mercy of the game's slow pacing. Half of the game's length is swallowed up by me trudging from point A to point B while characters yap endlessly about the current goings-on. That, or I’m being forced to sit through exposition dumps or cutscenes.

Worse still, the pacing is derailed by mandatory pixel-hunting investigations where I’m forced to clear out arbitrary busywork just to progress. No, Insomniac, I don’t want to search around a facility for doodles some sad kid drew. Why would anyone want to do this in a game about an angry, unkillable mutant with claws sharp enough to cut through space-time? I’m playing Wolverine to tear through enemies, but Insomniac thinks that sitting with a controller in my hand, serving as an interactive sounding board for comic book briefings, is a better use of the game’s run time.

(Credit: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment/PCMag)

Why Slice When You Can Punch Monotonously?

On a mechanical level, the combat is a simplistic, repetitive letdown. Logan wields unbreakable, atomically sharp adamantium claws, yet enemies feel like bloated punching bags that require mindless button-mashing to stagger. The much-hyped dismemberment isn’t a dynamic mechanic; it’s just a cosmetic death animation.

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The most efficient way to play the game is to mash the light attack button until an enemy staggers, execute a finisher to get your health back, and repeat. Trying to use the heavier combos you unlock is penalized because you can't cancel out of the animations, leaving you wide open to getting hit.

Worse still, the skill progression is artificial. Locking core abilities like standard counterattacks behind a ham-fisted RPG leveling system is insulting, as many of these should have been in Logan's toolkit from the jump. To top it off, iconic moves like the drill claw and berserker barrage are trapped behind individual cooldown meters. Forcing these iconic attacks onto a glorified stopwatch saps the fun out of his signature berserker rage.

(Credit: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment/PCMag)

Outclassed by its Peers

Perhaps I'm cynical from all my years playing action games; other action titles handle Wolverine's premise with more depth. Last year’s Ninja Gaiden 4 from Team Ninja and PlatinumGames fused a demanding combat sandbox with a dynamic resource meter that actively rewarded high-level play. Its entire loop revolved around strategic mechanical dismemberment, a concept perfected all the way back in Ninja Gaiden 2, where maiming enemies directly fed into brutal instant finishers. Even the decade-old Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance gave players tactile, precise control over Raiden's blade through a meter built entirely via skillful combos.

Outside of a genuinely fun Rage Meter that finally lets you chain rapid kills, Wolverine has nothing unique to offer the genre. It is outclassed by both modern and older-generation peers, which is embarrassing.

(Credit: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment/PCMag)

An Uninspired, Formulaic Retread

If you think the narrative salvages the package, think again. Marvel’s Wolverine is a superficial, formulaic comic book story where you can see every narrative beat coming a mile away.

Structurally, the plot tries to juggle two parallel threads, and both miss the mark. One arc focuses on Logan's character development, which feels like an uninspired retread of Kratos’ arc from the original PlayStation 2 God of War. The secondary thread tracks an alternate reality where Team X—mutants recruited by the villainous Nathaniel Essex—clash with Trask’s anti-mutant Reavers and Sentinels. It’s perfectly functional fan service, but because the writing fails to give you any reason to care about the stakes, the endless dialogue sections become a drag. Even the game's final zinger feels less like an exciting twist and more like sequel bait right off some corporate checklist.

(Credit: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment/PCMag)

The Final Slice

Wolverine talks a big game with its R-rated gore, but functionally, it’s a repetitive, padded-out bummer. By trading Spider-Man's open-world liberation for linear pacing and hollow hacking-and-slashing, Insomniac delivers a mid-tier action game wrapped in a premium brand name. Die-hard Marvel completionists or players with low expectations might find enough substance here to keep them happy. However, true action game fans looking for deep mechanics will leave disappointed, and would be better served looking elsewhere for their gaming fix.