We clawed through two hours of Marvel’s Wolverine at a preview event this week.
After three games in a row starring various Spider-Men, game developer Insomniac Games is turning its sights to another Marvel Comics icon: Wolverine. The titular Adamantium-clawed mutant takes centre stage in Marvel’s Wolverine, an action-adventure game set to launch on PlayStation 5 consoles this September.
It goes without saying that Wolverine is undoubtedly one of the most popular superheroes to ever hit the pages of a comic book. Despite that, the character has rarely had the opportunity to shine in a video game of his own. In fact, the last Wolverine-centred video game ever released was 2009’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which was a direct adaptation of the live-action movie starring Hugh Jackman. You know, the one Deadpool made fun of.
This time around, Insomniac is setting out to prove once again that Wolverine has what it takes to be the star of the show–not just the side character in an X-Men game. Whether or not the developer succeeds remains to be seen, but the two hours that we spent with Marvel’s Wolverine has left us optimistic, to say the least.
Marvel’s Wolverine
Release date: 15 September, 2026
Platform: PlayStation 5
Developer: Insomniac Games
Price: US$79.99
How is Marvel’s Wolverine changing X-Men canon?
I’ll admit it: I have been growing a little sceptical of Marvel’s Wolverine in recent months. The game’s first trailer, which was released during a 2021 State of Play presentation, seemed to hint at a grizzled and cranky Wolverine as seen in the comics, and most recently, X-Men ‘97. Recent trailers for the game have since departed from this original presentation, with Liam McIntyre portraying a younger Wolverine than expected. One with a noticeably kinder, doe-eyed face, no less.
I was a little worried that this take might not work for the character, but two hours spent with the game have sufficiently convinced me otherwise. It’s always going to be a little strange to see Wolverine speak without hearing the rumbling notes of Steve Blum’s gravelly voice. However, this is a version of Wolverine who is still growing into himself; still torn between playing the lone wolf and protecting his kin. He’s much younger and more naive, and thus McIntyre’s more intimate portrayal of the character plays better than expected onscreen.
The two-hour demo I played began with a rescue mission helmed by Team X, a team of mutant-rescuing vigilantes consisting of the shapeshifter Mystique, super-strong Sabretooth, and Wolverine himself, James “Logan” Howlett. Wolverine is noted to have left the team a long time ago under mysterious circumstances, and only rejoined for this particular rescue mission to save their leader: Nathaniel Essex.
Interestingly, Essex is known to become the antagonistic Mister Sinister in the comics, but here he plays the role of a Charles Xavier-like patriarch figure. Essex is also played by Troy Baker, whose likeness is used for the role with a rather convincing British accent to boot. Essex is also being held by Bolivar Trask, a certified mutant hater who is looking to end the mutant race with reckless indignation.
The demo then skips forward to the end of Act 1, which culminates in a bossfight between Team X and a prototype Sentinel. The Sentinel fight is a little rudimentary as far as bosses go, as all players have to do is dodge a few punches and get their claw strikes in where they can. Think of every giant-sized Nemesis you’ve fought in a Resident Evil game, and you’ll get the gist.
Following all this action and mayhem, the demo then shifts to far more peaceful environs: Madripoor, where Wolverine settles down in Mystique’s love interest Tyger’s bar–which just so happens to be the same bar seen in the game’s original teaser. Here, our beloved mutant embarks on slower-paced slice-of-life missions involving the rest of Team X, with the bar set against the backdrop of Madripoor’s Lowtown. Here, Madripoor takes on Southeast Asian flavour, complete with food stalls labelled “Melayu Makanan” offering… grilled lizards. Perhaps some pisang goreng might have been a more wholesome cultural nod, eh?
What is Team X in Marvel's Wolverine?
In the bar, Wolverine meets up with a friend named Walter who is looking to play a specific song (which turns out to be James Carr’s The Dark End of the Street; another callback to the original teaser). I also spotted an I.O.U. playing card here left by none other than Remy LaBeau (AKA Gambit), hinting at many future references and Easter eggs to be spotted in the game’s lively environments.
He also talks to Sabretooth, who all but demands that he take over Team X, and plays drinking games with Mystique, who not-too-subtly makes a dig at his see-through gruff personality. At the end of it all, Wolverine seeks out his telepathic love interest Jean Grey, but the duo’s kindling romance is interrupted by the sudden arrival of the Hand–the red-hooded ninjas recently seen in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. They take off with Walter, leaving Wolverine to chase after them.
This is where the demo ended. Interestingly, I found myself drawn in not so much by the more action-packed earlier missions, but by this calm scene in Madripoor, where we’re allowed to take an extended breather in Insomniac’s take on the mutant world. The game’s facial animation and detailed world design really come alive here, and I was tempted more than once to venture off the straight and narrow (these demos have a pretty tight time window to get things done) in order to glean more interactions from the surrounding cast.
Most importantly, it finally shows where the real heart of this story lies: Wolverine’s found family. While the squabbling trio of Logan, Mystique, and Sabretooth initially seem dysfunctional and doomed to fail as a team, the Madripoor sequence takes the time to reveal that they really do care for each other in their own way. The setup is there for an affecting story about friendship and family, and it feels far more interesting than the somewhat stilted Logan-Jean romance (which, admittedly, I dropped right into without full context) or the done-before Trask subplot.
If Marvel’s Wolverine leans into its strengths, Insomniac could have another superhero hit on its hands.
Is Marvel’s Wolverines’ combat R-rated?
When it comes to combat, Marvel’s Wolverine is decidedly more simplistic than Marvel’s Spider-Man or Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank franchise. Where players have access to a wide variety of gadgets and tools in the latter games to get one over on their enemies, Wolverine has two straightforward weapons of destruction: his Adamantium-tipped claws.
Every combat encounter in this demo devolved into a series of button mashing attack combos (square for regular attacks, triangles for leap attacks) to put enemies down. Wolverine can also parry melee attacks and thus open up windows to pummel his enemies into bloody submission. He also has four abilities that can be equipped via a skill tree, allowing him to do things like spin around like a cyclone of kitchen knives, summon a temporary shield, or kick an enemy in the face. Attack combos, from what I’ve seen in this demo, can be extended and upgraded using the skill tree.
Wolverine also has a rage metre, which builds up in battle as he slays enemies. He can also refill his health bar (thanks to his regeneration) by quickly killing enemies. This all flows into a core combat loop that asks players to simply meet their enemies head-on and kill, kill, kill. There is a little room for creativity, but for the most part, Insomniac is trading in player agency for the power fantasy of being a non-stop killing machine.
It’s as brutally violent as a Wolverine game should be, with puddles of blood growing upon the battlefield, accompanied by dismembered limbs and miscellaneous viscera. Wolverine himself goes through hell and back in these short two hours, getting the skin and muscles burned off his Adamantium skeleton before they are painfully sown back together. The story is a notable shade darker than the Spider-Man games, which is welcome given the rather dire status quo it sets for mutantkind.
My concerns mostly lie in how simplistic I found the combat to be during this demo. There is not much room to explore other avenues of defeating enemies besides slicing and dicing, where a really engaging action game would typically hand you more tools to play with. The skill tree could certainly alleviate this issue in a proper playthrough, however. One Nightmare Door challenge room I encountered–which consisted of a parkour challenge–also highlighted the weaknesses of the game’s traversal systems, which really just consist of running and climbing over things.
These Nightmare Door challenges would make a lot more sense in a game like Spider-Man, where movement and gadgetry have a higher skill ceiling than Marvel’s Wolverine. Unfortunately, they are required to learn more about Wolverine's long-buried past. In general, I was certainly kept engaged over the span of this two-hour demo, but how about a full playthrough? Will these systems expand over time, or will they begin to feel rudimentary all too quickly? These questions, I can only hold with me as I await the game’s full release with bated breath.
Verdict
Besides some concerns over the repetitive nature of its combat encounters, I really enjoyed the two hours I spent with Marvel’s Wolverine. As someone who loves to keep up with the mutants in the pages of Marvel Comics, it was a lot of fun to see the unique way Insomniac Games has reshaped them to better fit its ever-expanding Marvel universe.
This developer has already done wonders for a certain friendly neighbourhood Peter Parker (and more recently, Miles Morales), and I can only hope that it manages to work the same magic on Wolverine upon his latest video game debut.
Marvel’s Wolverine launches on 15 September, 2026, on PlayStation 5.
Will Marvel’s Wolverine have multiplayer gameplay?
Marvel’s Wolverine has only been announced to contain a singleplayer campaign, with no multiplayer elements included.
Who is making Marvel’s Wolverine?
Insomniac Games, the developer of the Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank series, is making Marvel’s Wolverine.
Is Marvel’s Wolverine coming out on PC?
Marvel’s Wolverine is a PlayStation 5-exclusive game.
