Wolverine: Review in progress…

Will · September 19, 2026, 5:52pm

So I’ve been writing reviews of everything I play for the last few years. I’d been making one off reviews for some games but about two years ago I decided to make the conscious effort to journal everything I play and turn those into reviews. I just wanted to have something I could look back on and appreciate, see how I felt in that moment. Little did I know that this practice would be preparing me for contributing to the Jampackd mag so here we are expanding on this with a Reviews in Progress post.

I’m not saying I’ll do this for every game or review I contribute but I am gonna do it with this one. The idea being I’d like to be transparent with how I’m feeling about a game as I am making my way through it. The intent being to provide opportunity to discuss the game and maybe go a little deeper on subjects that might need a bit more nuance.

So with that let’s get started.

First impressions are very strong. I sat on the main menu for a beat listening to the theme just cause it hooked me that hard. Insomniac always does such a great job with composer selection: Rift Apart had Mark Mothersbaugh, the Spider Man games all were John Paesano, and here we have David Fleming hot off the success of working with James Gunn on Superman.

If this theme is anything to go by I’m in for a musical treat.

The first and obvious thing I think most folks will notice and appreciate is how good this game looks. Probably shouldn’t be that surprising given Insomniacs track record but their technology is in another class all on its own. High quality models, great looking special effects, fantastic lighting, full ray traced options in every single mode and all of it at a buttery smooth 60fps. This is truly a stellar looking game in just about every mode you play in.

The opening area is pretty linear with not a ton of room for exploration, given it’s a tutorial zone I’m not surprised but it also didn’t stop me from taking a moment to look at every nook and cranny. Not just good looking these environments are also hugely dynamic with tons of breakable materials. Every claw swipe, punch, kick, and thrown enemy results in a flurry of particles/blood/physics props flying everywhere. There was one spot at the beginning I’d reloaded a few times just because I was curious how much of the environment I could mess up.

I don’t have access to any of Wolverines kit beyond the standard moves being rolled out in the tutorial but I feel like there’s definitely some hidden depth to the combat. Starts out pretty spam heavy but I have a feeling there’s plenty of room to be stylish once you start unlocking things.

Really if there’s one nit pick I have it’d be that the QTEs in this game are pretty pointless. In Insomniacs previous games they’d halt gameplay till you engaged, here they progress whether you do them or not. There’s no fail state, so to that end why not just have it be a regular cutscene? I’m gonna leave them on for this first play through but I intend to do a new game+ of this and I will be turning those off for that. I am happy to watch a cool cutscene I don’t need to push buttons in a mostly non interactive scene.

Overall first impressions remain positive, will have more later.

EposVox · September 19, 2026, 5:55pm

Some of my favorite memories attached to games are when I just loved booting them up to have the menu music going.

EposVox · September 21, 2026, 11:28am

EposVox · September 21, 2026, 11:28am

Will · September 21, 2026, 4:30pm

Real quick replying to this one before I go on with more review in progress:

I get what they’re saying, I don’t feel the same pull that I do with other games to push on. The games got built in break points where you go back to base so if they don’t get you to take a break there I wont be surprised if you just eventually feel burned out after some missions. It’s A LOT of action and these levels are long, sensory overload kinda thing. I really appreciate the quiet moments BECAUSE they give me a beat to take in what I just played. But the negative side of that is I am likely to just stop my session there too.

Alrighty so I put some more time in over the weekend, I’m somewhere around 10 hours played roughly 20% into the game. Those numbers are gonna sound odd but keep in mind I tend to take my time with games. I like to explore, use the photo mode, I’m kind of a sightseer/hunter gatherer in most games and that’s no different here. I played up until after the first motorcycle chase sequence and I’ve found the second Nightmare door. The problem with optional challenge content like this is when I’m presented with it I will almost always just grind out what is available until I clear it. So that is also raising up my playtime numbers as some of these challenges are pretty difficult especially early on when Wolverine isn’t as powered up.

I’ve been trying to force stealth in combat as much as I can but I’m finding that despite having stealth and defense focused abilities neither option is really all that good so far. They really want you to maximize aggression and just get in everyone’s face, bosses included. The first boss you’ll encounter you will likely do so without the forced healing ability so your options are: get beat up or get in their face. There’s telegraphed attacks that you are meant to parry and dodge but if you just turn up the aggression and pummel them while dodging rapidly you’ll end this fight very quickly. I’m purposely being ambiguous about how I talk about some areas and characters just to avoid spoilers for anyone reading along.

Unlike X-Men Origins: Wolverine I do not feel like Wolverine has everything he needs to deal with most enemies in the game. In that game you can basically beat the entire game and never use a special move. In this I am getting my butt handed to me on the regular. A lot of comparisons have been made to the Spider-Man games combat and I get why, but thus far I don’t think I’d make that comparison.

That’s all for now, more later.

EposVox · September 21, 2026, 5:06pm

Is this something you can go back to later? Do you get to return to levels/areas? (Not suggesting you should, asking for my own eventual play)

Will · September 21, 2026, 5:44pm

Oh yeah you definitely can go back.

This is a me thing that when presented with optional content in this way (it literally manifests in front of you) I am very likely to do said content rather than stick with the main path.

EposVox · September 21, 2026, 6:48pm

Oh I am too, at least at first - but I get frustrated if I feel like I’m not fully equipped to take it on yet, so just wanted to know if I’d have the means to return to it. Sweet!

Will · September 28, 2026, 7:29pm

Alrighty we back.

Just to set the stage for where things are now:

I’ll be the first to admit that I take my time with my games. I don’t rush through them like I used to and, as you’re about to see, I tend to treat games as a bit of a sight seeing opportunity. Marvel’s Wolverine is a fun game but its greatest asset is its visuals. Insomniac has really outdone themselves for Wolverine showcasing stellar environmental art and hyper detailed characters. There’s been several times I’ve thought to myself some of this has to be pre rendered but its really just that damn good looking of a game.

Come with me as we take a little trip through two locations in the game: Madripoor and Japan. Despite this not being an open world game I’ve been consistently surprised by the amount of life that Insomniac has crammed into this games world. Madripoor is a rich densely packed market area just outside the Princess bar where you get your first “slice of life” moment in the game. They drop you onto a bustling street with some back alleys to explore and find secrets, people chattering about, and just a really nice level of ambient detail showcased throughout.

Does make me kinda wish that these levels were used a bit more than they are, could very easily see some fun stealth missions taking place in this area.

Japan on the other hand is both densely populated with detail and also LARGE. This is is probably the closest you will get to a true open linear level and also one of the few times they let you explore on your own in a open world like way.

While here I continued hunting for “The Hand”, one of the enemy factions in this game, and came across a highly detailed bar and arcade.

Aside from tweaking settings in the photo mode none of these have been touched up. The game really just kinda looks like this.

Here’s a shot that is taken directly from the game with zero changes made to the scene, it’s just a raw screenshot I took with the share button:

And here’s one where I changed two spot lights in the background to make the scene pop more:

You could spend dozens of hours combing over this game and I don’t think you’d find a single bad frame across the entire campaign.

I’m not just taking pretty pictures tho I am playing the game lol. I keep getting hung up on Nightmare door challenges. These are entirely optional but the way they are presented I CANT just walk away from it so of course I sit there and grind out the challenge. They’re fun so I’m happy to do it but those are probably the two biggest contributing factors to my playtime. Just taking a minute to let the scene breath a little and appreciating the world that Insomniac has created here.

It is not often we get games of this fidelity and I just really like to take my time with them. Especially if its something that I am unlikely to play again and based on what I’ve seen of Wolverine I’m not sure I’ll have a good reason to revisit this game after I beat it.

That said if Insomniac doesn’t even at least consider putting in a Rogue Like mode based on one of the Nightmare door challenges I will be extremely disappointed. It’s basically there already it just needs to be a thing you can launch from the main menu and maybe they add some more unlocks to it as well to give it a bit more depth.

Anyway, I should be able to finish this game this week and then after that I think it’ll be review time. Not sure I’ll be updating this thread anymore but if I get any replies here asking questions I’m happy to respond.