There’s a very specific thought that came to mind the moment I finished Marvel’s Wolverine.

“Damn, we finally have a pretty darn good Wolverine that’s not Hugh Jackman.”

I have nothing but respect for what Hugh Jackman has done with the character over the past two decades. His portrayal has shaped how a lot of people see Wolverine. But after all that time, it’s refreshing to see another actor take a proper swing at James Logan Howlett.

Liam McIntyre is fantastic here.

This isn’t exactly a live-action adaptation, but it’s about as close as you can get to having an actor perform Logan and Wolverine without putting a camera in front of him. And my god, does he perform.

McIntyre gives Logan a range of emotions that I wanted to see from the character. He isn’t just a dude acting all tough. He’s a man piecing together broken memories, balancing found-family relationships, and trying to be kind and helpful without ever becoming sappy.

For a story-driven action game like this, that’s important. Your lead can’t be insufferable when you’re going to spend more than 20 hours with him.

Thankfully, Logan is someone you can root for while he’s being a total badass.

That’s really what Marvel’s Wolverine is: a blockbuster you get to play.

A formula that works

When I first started playing Marvel’s Wolverine, I wasn’t convinced it was particularly great.

It felt familiar. Formulaic, even.

But then, after a while, I couldn’t put the controller down. That changed my mind pretty quickly.

I’m a binge watcher. If a narrative is engaging, I’m hooked. This is why I gravitate toward story-driven games, especially the kind of games that have become the money-makers for PlayStation.

Marvel’s Wolverine scratches that exact itch.

The story pulled me forward. The characters kept me invested. The combat was fun. And the set pieces are absolutely bat-shit insane.

It’s a perfect blend of all of those things.

The 21-hour campaign didn’t feel like a 21-hour campaign. It felt like I was binging an interactive, movie-quality TV series with hour-long episodes. I kept telling myself I would stop after a chapter, only to find myself wanting to see what happens next.

There were nights when I stayed up longer than I normally would just to make sure I reached a natural break point.

That’s a pretty good sign.

The funny thing is that I could still see the formula while playing it.

There are story beats you can probably figure out ahead of time. If you’ve played Insomniac’s Marvel’s Spider-Man, you might even recognize some of the ways the studio likes to structure its stories. As someone who’s been exposed to plenty of superhero stories, there isn’t much here that I would call life-changing or groundbreaking.

But it doesn’t really need to be. The execution is what makes it work.

Insomniac understands how to make these games feel like movies that you play. It understands compelling storytelling, character work, proper pacing, and dynamic gameplay.

More importantly, it understands when to let you breathe.

Knowing when to slow down

The rhythm of Marvel’s Wolverine is one of its biggest strengths.

You’ll go through a quiet character moment. Then you explore a little. There’s some dialogue. The action picks up. A fight escalates. And suddenly you’re in one of the game’s massive set pieces.

Then it lets you breathe again.

That sounds simple because it is. But getting that rhythm right is harder than it looks.

There were moments when I thought a fight was going to go on forever. Then it would stop right when I started thinking that.

The game knows when you’ve had enough.

That matters because Wolverine’s combat can get pretty intense.

But because the combat sections are spaced out properly, I was almost always looking forward to the next group of enemies I could mow down.

The quiet moments are just as important. I absolutely loved them.

They give you a breather from the violence, but they also help steady you on where the story is going. The action, violence, character work, and jaw-dropping set pieces all serve each other.

It’s a balance Insomniac executed fantastically.

This is Wolverine as a combat fantasy

If there’s one thing I think Insomniac absolutely nailed, it’s the feeling of unleashing Wolverine in combat.

Playing as Spider-Man in Insomniac’s games gives you an especially strong connection to the character because his traversal is so unique. Swinging through New York is such a huge part of what makes you feel like Spider-Man.

Wolverine doesn’t quite have that.

He’s more ground-bound, and that means some of the experience feels closer to playing a traditional hack-and-slash character.

But when the fighting starts, it’s a different story.

I felt like a savage force of nature wailing on enemies.

The game gets the important parts of Logan’s physicality right. His aggression. His durability. His healing factor. His claws.

Even the Rage system makes sense.

I particularly love how Rage feeds into his healing factor. That gameplay loop feels like a fantastic implementation of his mutant abilities. You’re building Rage, using it to stay in the fight, and generally making Wolverine feel like the nearly unstoppable force he’s supposed to be.

I do wish Rage felt a little more feral, though.

Wolverine is still pretty much in control when Rage kicks in. You deal more damage, but I was hoping for something that made it feel like Logan was losing control a little bit.

Maybe that’s asking for too much. I’m no game developer.

But it would have been an interesting way to express what Rage means for Wolverine beyond simply making him stronger.

Getting better feels good

The combat has enough going on to support a campaign that stretches beyond 20 hours.

Techniques become instrumental in making you feel like you’re getting better at combat. Adaptations let you build Logan around how you actually play.

I’m not particularly good at dodging and parrying, so I leaned into a tankier build. I equipped Adaptations that helped me absorb hits and extended the parry window because parrying is an important combat mechanic.

And whenever I successfully pulled off a parry, I felt like a complete badass.

That’s a good feeling to have several hours into a game.

The combat loop itself can naturally become repetitive. You’re fighting enemies, building Rage, using Techniques, and mixing up your combos.

But I never really got tired of it.

The one exception was a wave-based challenge that asks you to fight through a ridiculous number of enemies. Getting to the highest rank takes around 45 waves, and I could already feel my hands hurting around Wave 30.

That’s the kind of challenge you need to prepare for. Take it on, then take a break.

Thankfully, that was the only part of the combat that felt genuinely tiring to me.

And yes, if you’re here for the blood and gore, you will not be disappointed.

I’m not even that big a fan of excessive violence, but it works here.

There’s a famous Wolverine line about being the best at what he does, even if what he does isn’t very nice. The violence in this game supports that idea to a tee.

Marvel’s Wolverine earns its M for Mature rating.

Logan’s story is more personal than it looks

Wolverine being a superhero is the draw.

But underneath all the claws and mutant powers, this is really a story about a man trying to figure himself out.

It’s important to know going in that this is a pre-X-Men story. The game doesn’t immediately throw you into the familiar X-Men setup you might expect.

Instead, Logan is piecing together who he was, who he’s been, who he is, and ultimately who he wants to be.

It just happens to take place in a world where mutants exist.

I was never the biggest Wolverine fan. In fact, I hated how the live-action Fox movies treated him as the X-Man when the X-Men have always been an ensemble to me.

I say this as a Cyclops fan.

God bless Hugh Jackman and everything he has done for Wolverine, but his portrayal inevitably shaped the character’s place in popular culture.

Insomniac’s Logan feels a little different  — and maybe the fact that he’s canonically a “short king” here makes him seem more appropriate.

He’s a man trying to do right by the people around him while also trying to figure out how to do right by himself.

He’s broken. His memories are fragmented. He has people around him that he cares about. And underneath the rough exterior is someone who is simply trying his best to make sense of his present reality.

That made him surprisingly easy to root for.

Jean Grey is having a moment

And then there’s Jean Grey.

I did not expect Jean to become one of my favorite parts of Marvel’s Wolverine.

But here we are.

I think a lot of people primarily know Jean through a few familiar ideas. The love triangle between Scott and Logan. The Phoenix. Getting overwhelmed by her powers.

The 1990s animated series had plenty of moments where Jean felt weak, while the live-action movies eventually speed-ran toward the Phoenix side of the character.

Marvel’s Wolverine gives her room to simply be Jean.

She’s headstrong. She can take care of herself and the people around her. She has her own motivations and a steadfast desire to protect her found family of mutants.

She can hold her own in a verbal spat just as easily as she can throw down with her mutant abilities.

She could just as easily have been marketed as the second lead of this game.

She’s fantastic.

Easily one of my favorite versions of Jean Grey.

And I think she’s about to get a lot more fans.

Between Sadie Sink’s Jean in Spider-Man: Brand New Day and this version from Insomniac, Jean Grey is suddenly having a moment.

I just don’t think we’ve gotten enough versions of Jean where she gets to be her own person.

Here, she is.

And she’s also incredibly charming.

A world that doesn’t need to be open

One thing I appreciate about Marvel’s Wolverine is that it doesn’t feel like Insomniac looked at its previous games and decided everything had to become bigger.

This isn’t an open-world game and that’s perfectly fine.

Not everything needs to be openworld.

The structure actually reminds me more of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart than Marvel’s Spider-Man. You move through contained environments, but they don’t feel like one long tunnel.

The locations are distinct. There’s room to explore. There are things to find. And the optional activities are tied to gameplay mechanics, which makes them feel more useful than simple checklist items.

Madripoor was especially memorable to me.

Part of that is because it’s a Southeast Asian-adjacent location, and that’s where I’m from. I’d love to see a more fully explorable version of Madripoor someday.

The game’s global structure also reminded me a little of how Captain America: Civil War handled its different locations.

The game also has plenty of little X-Men winks that made me go, “I understood that reference.”

The Mission Replay screen also recreates that famous meme of Logan lying on his bed and staring at a framed photo. 

They did the Wolverine meme lol https://t.co/3kSO4i3n0t pic.twitter.com/bvc5q1A8Ye

— Genki✨ (@Genki_JPN) August 28, 2026

These touches never feel like they’re there just for the sake of checking a box. They add personality to the world and make it feel like Insomniac understands the character and the people who have grown up with him.

It makes the adventure feel bigger without forcing the game to become a massive open-world playground.

That’s the right choice for this particular story.

The blockbuster moments

The set pieces are where Marvel’s Wolverine really goes for it.

There are plenty of moments where you might just stop and think, “Woah.”

The action is high-octane. The spectacle is ridiculous. And there are sequences that genuinely made me want to shout at the screen.

The motorcycle sections are probably what I’ll remember most.

I sucked at them but they were fun as hell.

That’s a pretty good description of a lot of the game’s biggest moments. They’re designed to make you feel like you’re inside a giant action movie, and they succeed.

What’s important is that the spectacle never felt disconnected from the rest of the game.

The quieter scenes prepare you for the big moments. The story gives them context. The combat gets you there.

Everything serves everything else.

And after 21 hours, I wasn’t thinking about which individual feature was the most innovative.

I was thinking about the experience as a whole.

A complete package

Another thing Insomniac gets right here is what happens after the credits.

Marvel’s Wolverine feels complete.

You can replay missions and go back for objectives you missed. There’s Photo Mode. There’s New Game Plus available right away. There’s optional content waiting for you.

You have plenty to do even after the credits roll.

That’s especially notable because the lack of New Game Plus and limited post-game content were among the major criticisms of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Wolverine addresses those concerns from day one.

Personally, I want to go back through the other missions before jumping into another full playthrough. And when I do replay the game, it won’t necessarily be because I want to discover some completely different combat experience.

I just want to experience the story again.

That’s something I tend to do with Insomniac’s games.

Not groundbreaking. Just really, really good.

If I had to point to the biggest weakness of Marvel’s Wolverine, it’s predictability.

Nothing here feels particularly groundbreaking or new.

The story doesn’t have a lot of twists that genuinely surprised me. There are plenty of story breadcrumbs that make it possible to figure out where certain things are heading.

But by the time I reached the end, I didn’t really care.

The execution was good enough that I was hooked regardless.

And the game leaves plenty of room for what Insomniac could potentially do next.

I can’t say much more without getting into spoiler territory.

Let’s just say I’m a thousand percent excited.

The one character I genuinely wish had gotten more to work with is Lady Deathstrike.

Her hatred for Logan makes sense within the story, but she felt too one-note to me. Her background suggested there could have been more there, and I don’t think the character quite got the material she deserved.

That’s about as far as my major complaints go.

Combat can be repetitive because combat is naturally going to be repetitive. The game isn’t reinventing the genre.

But nothing became egregious enough for me to point at and say, “This is a problem.”

That’s because Marvel’s Wolverine is remarkably consistent.

Wolverine knows what it wants to be

Marvel’s Wolverine isn’t the game that will fundamentally change how we think about superhero games.

It doesn’t need to be.

It’s a pretty darn awesome action game that feels like a movie.

More importantly, it’s a game that understands the character it’s trying to portray.

When you’re watching Logan piece together his memories, trying to understand the people around him, or figuring out what kind of person he wants to be, the game gives you room to care about him.

When the claws come out, it lets you become a savage force of nature.

Then, when you’ve had enough, it gives you a quiet moment to breathe.

That’s the formula. It’s familiar. It’s predictable. And it works. Really, really well.

I started Marvel’s Wolverine thinking it was simply another polished PlayStation blockbuster.

By the time the credits rolled, I had spent 21 hours completely hooked.

I sat for about two hours afterward just taking the whole thing in and sorting through my thoughts.

Whew.

What an experience.

Marvel’s Wolverine reminded me why I keep coming back to story-driven action games in the first place. It doesn’t need to reinvent the formula. It just needs to execute it well enough that you forget you’re playing a game and get completely swept up in the experience.

That’s exactly what it did to me.

Marvel’s Wolverine isn’t groundbreaking. It doesn’t need to be. It’s just damn good at being the kind of game I want to play.

GadgetMatch verdict: Swipe Right.

Marvel’s Wolverine is one of the very best at what it does. And what it does is pretty astonishing.  It delivers a polished, cinematic, character-driven experience that makes it very easy to lose 20-plus hours to it.