Marvel's Wolverine Review: Patronizing Design — Full Breakdown & Transcript

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[00:25] especially when it involves studios that I greatly admire and respect, who are making a game based on one of my favorite characters. At the end of the day, in this business, you've got to be real, and the fact of the matter is, I do not recommend Marvel's Wolverine because it is a bad game.

[00:37] And at the center of this badness is one thing that I think is particularly important to talk about. I would argue that the defining characteristic of Marvel's Wolverine is a design philosophy that assumes the player is extremely stupid. And I know that's a massive shot across the bow as an opener for review,

[00:51] so I want to start by showing you a clip that epitomizes many of the things that are wrong with this game. To start here, there's some combat, and we'll talk about this a lot more throughout the review, but combat in this game is not good. It is extremely one-dimensional, spammy, sloppy, and repetitive, but like I said, we will talk more about it later.

[01:07] Combat ends, and the first thing that happens is that Wolverine talks to herself to remind the player what their current objective is. Who the hell are you, Greg? Logan does this constantly throughout the game, so much so that it would make Aloy herself blush.

[01:20] There is only one way out of this area, but even then we still get a scent line, which is essentially like a GPS guide that we get in an open world game, only it's here, in this very narrow, linear action game.

[01:32] The overwhelming majority of levels in this game will see you following this GPS scent line for either a short or an extended period of time. And for the record, I know that Logan has enhanced sensors, including smell and hearing,

[01:44] but the way this aspect of his character has been realized in the video game is so heavy-handed that it robs the player of their agency, it ruins the potential for exploration and discovery, and it's also just deeply patronizing. This scentline GPS guide is interrupted by an entirely new GPS guide,

[02:00] a set of roots that magically springs up from out of nowhere and leads us slightly to the left, because I guess we couldn't have been trusted to spot this on our own. Through the Door is one of the game's nightmare challenges, which are gameplay scenarios that are meant to be very challenging and allow us to unlock Logan's lost memories.

[02:16] This challenge is a traversal-based obstacle course that the game has no real traversal systems to speak of, so it's essentially just holding up on the sticks for 50 seconds while pressing jump occasionally, and heaven forbid you might at any point be unsure where to go, because the entire trail, which is strictly linear, mind you, is signposted with white cloth, white paint, and actual flashing red lights.

[02:37] This is the first time I've done this challenge, by the way, and I immediately get the fastest possible time. I step out of the nightmare and Logan again emotes with the same voice line he said earlier to remind me what I am doing. I can see in front of me the GPS scent line I now need to follow, but just in case I've missed it, an additional UI prompt slaps down on top of the scent line to remind me that that's what I need to follow.

[02:59] In the distance, I spot an energy crate. These are just random boxes that are littered throughout the level without any rhyme or reason, and I'm supposed to smash these because they award XP. They're the Wolverine equivalent of Metroid Prime Sport green crystals in the desert,

[03:14] so thankfully they are optional. I spot another one a few feet away from this one, which I think is a good demonstration of just how random the placement of these crates are. While all of this is happening, I can hear very clearly that there is a hidden chest nearby,

[03:27] but I don't need to hear that because I could see this hidden chest from back here. Hidden chests in this game emit a visual pulse that is so massive that it can be seen from

[03:40] behind whatever geometry is obstructing it from view, but it also has not one, but two audio cues playing, one of them a constant hum and the other one a sonar pulse.

[03:54] This chest awards me 50 materials which are used to craft new suits, I need 5 chests to to unlock a new suit. Wolverine of course talks to himself while collecting his items, and with that collected I continue following the scent trail out of this area. Do note that there is only one exit out of this area, but I get a scent trail anyway.

[04:10] This entire sequence is early in the game, but I promise you that this exact sequence of events that I described to you plays out over and over again throughout Wolverine's 20ish hour runtime. It is a game that assumes you cannot walk in a straight line without giving you a GPS guide to follow, and it will give you an objective marker that points to that GPS guide

[04:27] guide just to make sure you're okay. It's a game that assumes you cannot navigate a strictly linear obstacle course without highlighting all of the handholds and platforms. It is a game that has so little faith in your ability to find hidden items that it gives you three clues pointing toward them and one of

[04:43] them may as well be x-ray vision. This is why I came to really dislike this video game. It's not because of the inherent quality of the game, which looks great, runs flawlessly, has some solid performances from the cast and tells an uneven but ultimately engaging comic book origin story. It's because of the way

[04:57] it has been designed is insulting to your intelligence, and it makes Marvel's Wolverine feel like such a facile toy that is mechanically and intellectually misaligned from the characters, tone, scenes, and gore it adopts as its aesthetic.

[05:09] You might be thinking to yourself, hey man, all the stuff you just listed there, it's been present in AAA games for a long time, why are you making such a big deal of it now? Well, for one, I think it's worth it, I truly do. And secondly, a lot of this stuff exists in open world or semi-open world games where

[05:21] there's a larger risk that the player may not know where to go or what to do, but here in this strictly linear action game, where there can almost never be any possible confusion about the path forward, these hand-holding elements grate in all new infuriating ways.

[05:35] Maybe you're the sort of player that isn't bothered by this stuff, and you're just wondering, is the story good? Is the combat good? Does it deliver the sort of spectacle and comic book style surprises you'd hope for from a Wolverine game? To you I say, it's honestly a bit of a mixed bag. I do think there are some good things here, like the presentation and some of the storytelling,

[05:49] but I think the combat is a major letdown to the point where I'm a little stunned that Insomniac thought this would be good enough to carry a 20 hour linear experience, the story does have its moments but ultimately it feels poorly paced and padded out, while also trying to stuff in too much sequel bait such that the whole thing becomes too top heavy by the end But standing back from all of that unevenness there an almost undeniable feeling that Insomniac have not tapped the vein of Wolverine and the X universe as well as they could have

[06:12] and it's likely to be that feeling that will stay with you when it's got its role more than any other. I know this is a brutal opening, and I really wouldn't be going as hard as this had Wolverine just been a fairly average superhero game with disappointing combat and an uneven story. For me, it's the way that Marvel's Wolverine has been designed

[06:26] that makes it so important to push back on, because this cannot be the way that these big-budget, AAA system-selling games are designed. This cannot be the way that this industry makes video games. And honestly, I suspect it won't be,

[06:38] because long after we've stopped talking about Wolverine's pretty visuals of subpar combat, I think we'll continue to talk about it as a cautionary tale for AAA game design and the risk of patronising your audience to the point that they just can't take it anymore.

[06:53] Get out of my way! Are you still with me, Al? Marvel's Wolverine arrives at an important moment for Marvel since they just announced a new X-Men movie arriving sometime in 2028,

[07:05] and with the next Avengers movie feeling like a farewell tour, the weight of the machine is surely about to swing behind the Professor and his merry band of misfits. In that sense, Insomniac's peril is both well-timed and well-chosen, since it's a prequel story that essentially sets up the entire mutant universe.

[07:19] In the time before Xavier's school, when mutants were still hidden from society, small communities of mutants have formed to provide safety and security for one another. One of these communities is King X, a mercenary band led by one Nathaniel Essex, who seeks to protect mutants from the clandestine pseudo-government forces that know of their existence and hunt them.

[07:35] Together with the perpetually pissed off Sabretooth, the shape-shifting Mystique, and the titular hero, King X's mission appears to be righteous, until events lead Wolverine to begin questioning what Essex's ultimate goals are, and things begin to unfold from there.

[07:47] Aren't you grateful, sir? I simply gave you the tools to help yourself. What a magic wand. I know many people who are eyeing Wolverine are doing so because they love the character, they love the universe, and they're always down to see a new spin on comics' most angry short king.

[07:59] I fall into that category, to be honest, and I'll tell you that I appreciated many aspects of Insomniac's storytelling here, but it never quite coalesced to give me the sorts of highs that the best comic ones, TV shows, or movies did. Insomniac's spin on Wolverine, played by Liam McIntyre,

[08:11] is interesting because most of the Wolverine that you see in the movies or the TV shows paints Wolverine as a bit of an arsehole who just so happens to have a heart of gold, but here, Insomniac's Logan is a genuinely nice guy. He's not a lone wolf, but rather a team player.

[08:24] He's not short-tempered, but rather quite patient with those around him. He's good with kids. He says sorry when he does the wrong thing. The list goes on. A bad-faced reading of this would be like they made Wolverine soft, but that's not it at all. He's still as ferocious and animalistic as you'd expect him to be

[08:38] when it's time to throw down, but he's more affable when he's around those he trusts. And maybe this won't be your favorite rendition ever, but it's an interesting one. It gives Logan a lot of natural emotional depth early on without having to excavate that from under the more traditional angry Adelaide we're so used to seeing.

[08:52] Oh, big tandem. Thank you. I found this. Push my way back. Happy birthday.

[09:04] Okay. The other standout member of the cast is Essex, played by Troy Baker. Very difficult to talk about his performance without going into spoilers. I guess I'll just say that I think Essex was maybe my favorite part of the whole game.

[09:17] And I think many people are really going to enjoy what Insomniac has done with this character and how Troy Baker has brought him to life. When you are ready. The idea of a sample was wanted for the fall.

[09:31] It's not a spoiler to say that Jean Grey is in this game, and also not a spoiler to say that Wolverine and Jean Grey have a romantic connection that is handled in different ways depending on which comics you're reading, or TV show or movie you're watching. It's present here as well, and Insomniac have put their own unique spin on it

[09:44] in a way that I think really works. Again, can't say too much due to spoilers, but if the will-they-won't-they story of Logan and Jean is one you enjoy being told, I think you're going to like this one too. Saber Truth is fairly one note, but that's often his job as a character, and I think he does a decent enough job of being a reminder of just how dangerous an unhinged Wolverine could be were he ever to go off the deep end.

[10:03] I do think they did Mystique pretty dirty here though, since she's very often relegated to mission ops, a.k.a. the voice reminding you what your objective is. You do slide alongside her sometimes, but overall she feels very underutilized. Mystique is fucking cool, and I'd much rather have some nameless NPC give me directions over comms than her.

[10:19] You should be able to reach in from the observation room on the ground floor. The point in casting Underdeveloped has a lot to do with the story that Insomniac has written, and how little it leverages the potential of these characters. See, there's a really clear A-plot here about Essex's mission to protect mutants and how that intersects with things like the Sentinel Program and the vulnerable mutant communities in Madripoor,

[10:38] and there's plenty of face time with Sabretooth and Mystique, and all that stuff is quite compelling in its own right. But basically the entire game's second act is set in Japan, and the story arc is connected to the main quest, absolutely, but it has a lot of side quest energy because if Team X is pushed right into the background

[10:53] while Logan and Jean square off against the hand in their leader Lady Deathstrike. But even setting aside the more granular analysis of characters and story arcs and pacing etc, the more important question is, do you feel this in your jellies? I think the answer to that is a pretty definitive no.

[11:06] There are some moments here that hit, but overall you're left feeling like this is a novel spin on Wolverine and those around him rather than a truly definitive rendition of these characters and events, the likes of which would be devastated if it wasn't carried forward in future stories.

[11:18] Insomniac are clearly positioning this as issue one of a rebooted series, but I think it would have sat more comfortably as a one-shot, and when it comes to truly capitalizing on the soul of Wolverine in the X-Men universe, I think Insomniac are going to have to be willing to do some real soul-searching, as they haven't quite found a few.

[11:44] Star Wars Wolverine is a strictly linear action game, but rather than embrace that fully and deliver an experience structured like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta or Vanquish, and instead tries to have its cake and eat it too, committing to half-assed exploration that's utterly ruined

[11:56] by obnoxious hand-holding UI, and also these shoehorn nightmare challenges that often feel completely misaligned to the core gameplay mood. The result is a game that feels thrown together and deeply patronizing Let talk about that level design first Levels in Marvel Wolverine are almost always strictly linear but on occasion they might have a hallway that forks left for a few meters and at the end of that hallway are these crates They are energy crates used by the enemy for something and if I destroy them I get

[12:19] some experience points. And I really hate to use the word lazy, but for real, this just feels so unbelievably lazy. Just some random boxes around the level that Wolverine has to punch, and that's the way you incentivize the player to walk 20 meters off the golden path? And you won't fully

[12:34] graph just how phoned in these things feel until you see the haphazard placement around the levels. There's no system to it, no sports, it just feels like someone did a no-clip fly-through and pointed at the screen every 30 seconds saying, there, there, there, there, done. It really is that bad.

[12:48] And in Japan, because you're fighting different enemies at hand, they don't use energy crates, they use these red lantern things. So these are the things that are awkwardly and nonsensically strewn about the level and they just look utterly ridiculous. Like, look at this here. Here they're

[13:02] have been used as a signpost for where to go next, because I guess the big white sheets weren't already enough, and the fact that there's literally nowhere else to go here, so it would have been impossible to miss these shipping containers as your way forward.

[13:22] So, those are the XP crate slash lanterns. How about these hidden chests? You probably think I was cherry picking in the intro, so here are some other examples of how insomniac have hidden these chests.

[13:40] Is that underground security office? Yeah, but I'm not bulletproof like you. So what for the fuck? There should be an elevator. You see what I mean, right? It's just, it's insane that this is a thing.

[13:52] And it's obviously a relic of how insomniac did similar collectible items in Spider-Man, where those little backpacks would have been a sound and you'd be swinging past them and you'd hear it There is a difference between a small room the size of an office boardroom

[14:04] and the entirety of the map of Manhattan. I probably do need a little help to find a needle in a haystack, but I probably don't need that help if the needle is located in a matchbox.

[14:16] Nightmare Challenges. So as I said, it's impossible to miss these. The game will literally throw up big, magical, distracting roots that serve as a GPS side leading you right to them. Again, it would have been really cool for these to have been genuinely hidden, but alas.

[14:28] Also, they appear in some of the most random moments with absolutely no thought as to whether or not they should be interrupting what's going on. Like, you really will be in a tense mission with shit going down and people on comms yelling at you, like,

[14:40] get to the power core, or whatever, and then one of these things will just appear out of nowhere, and Logan's like, huh, guess I'll take a break from all this crazy mission stuff to go and explore some of my trauma. It's like in open world games where there's an imminent threat to the planet, but your characters spend their time doing side quests, playing card games and fishing,

[14:54] Insomniac really managed to recreate that feeling within a living action game. Challenges themselves are 50% obstacle courses and 50% combat challenges. Every single traversal challenge is as easy as the first one I showed you. Arguably

[15:06] easier in some instances since many of the Japan ones have these big red arrows pointing where to go and Insomniac developer spoke about the fact that in Insomniac's view traversal is not an important part of Wolverine's character.

[15:18] So why are there half a dozen traversal challenges in a game where there are no traversal systems. And just to follow on the topic, jumping in Marvel's Wolverine is insane. So you can jump, but only a set height and distance, and you can also leap to distant targets using the

[15:32] triangle button, and that covers a huge amount of space actually, but if you want to just be able to jump up high somewhere in order to reposition, or when you're in chase sequence, you need to use these jump pads, which are marked in white paint. Otherwise you won't get enough height, so you don't

[15:48] even has full control over Wolverine's movement during combat and traversal because he can jump higher than his default jump, but only when Insomniac gives you express permission to do so. Anyway, the other Nightmare Challenges are combat focused, and they're mostly fine I

[16:01] guess. Really easy though, because the overall combat is easy, so none of these Nightmare Challenges are particularly difficult. So, those are the Nightmare Challenges. Outside of that, there are whiskey bottles hidden throughout each level which award some upgrade points, and that's about it.

[16:13] Outside of that, you're just finding your way through very linear levels that feel even more linear and more narrow because you've been dog walked through them by Insomniac's patronizing UI. I remember getting to this one scenario where Logan kind of just takes off to get some air,

[16:25] he suddenly finds himself out in the wilderness, and the soundstage empties out and a horizon opens up, there's a nice track playing in the background, it's clear that Insomniac wants you to feel that this is a moment of space and clarity for Logan, and immediately you're met with a new tutorial prompt telling you that those energy crates that you were

[16:39] hitting before, they're now straw targets, and the game wants you to hit these for some experience points. Soon after that, you hear a wolf cry in the distance, and its location is marked with a big fucking pulsing sonar thing that takes up a quarter of the screen.

[16:56] Meanwhile, a new GPS trail suddenly appears on your right that leads you to a giant, unmissable cave, and the set line leads you directly to the one hidden collectible in this entire level.

[17:08] this could have been a moment when all the bullshit was passed and logan could have just been with nature and the player could have been with logan in touch with his moment of peace but

[17:20] there is no peace in this game no respite from its suffocating patronizing game design that genuinely believes that you might not have been able to spot this cave without their assistance In my preview, I worried that combat in Marvel's Wolverine lacked depth, variety and expression,

[17:47] and now having rolled credits, I can confirm that all those concerns were valid, if the combat here is just not good. But I guess I want to say at the very top that it's not terrible, like there is some enjoyment to be had here if you're looking for a very simple, straightforward combat model that isn't really asking anything of you,

[18:01] but honestly that's really the kindest thing I can say of it. Without getting too lost in the weeds, combat in Wolverine is mainly about pressing the square button a lot and the triangle button occasionally since that will leap you to distant targets and also acts as a combo finish up The game really focused on parrying as well as dodging certain unblockable melee attacks and ranged attacks You do have some active abilities which are on fairly long cooldowns but these can be reduced by some perk points Even then it does feel

[18:24] like you're waiting a while before these cooldowns come back up. There are some contextual elements and moves in the mix too, for example, holding square initiates a kick that can break an enemy's guard, or shoves them into a wall so you can initiate a sort of barrage. Combat in Wolverine is absolutely relentless, since Wolverine is constantly surrounded by

[18:43] numerous enemies, constantly being shot at from range, and he's also able to immediately leap to his next target, so there's never any downtime. Enemy design is also extremely limited, such that all enemies feel functionally the same, and they don't force you into different patterns of play, and this includes the Sentinel to

[18:59] arrive later in the game. They're a massive disappointment by the way. Your inputs are very limited, and your cooldowns are very long. What this means is that you're constantly doing the same thing over and over again in quick succession without a break, and every single common encounter feels the same.

[19:13] At first it feels cathartic since Wolverine should feel relentless, but that catharsis soon turns to boredom as you quickly master both your own kit and the enemy's design, and things simply do not evolve enough to ever relieve that boredom. Bosses. Man, these are bad. The Sentinel fight I talked about in my preview is a low point

[19:27] that's easily the worst boss in the game and absolutely does not really fit this game at all, but the 1v1 fights against major villains are a little better, only to how similar these fights feel to fighting regular enemies. You really are just standing in a square, dumping your cooldowns and parrying.

[19:40] Bonnie Woosha is a good parallel here, because both boss encounters all utilize the same combat fundamentals that you use against regular enemies, but the framing and the spectacle and the special attacks and the phases, those encounters were incredible and felt nothing

[19:53] like fighting regular rank and style enemies. Bosses in Marvel's Wolverine never come close to giving you that feeling. The entirety of Marvel's Wolverine feels like a missed opportunity, but perhaps the biggest miss was the choice to only make Wolverine playable.

[20:05] So many of the missions see you fighting alongside Mystique, or Sabretooth, or Jean Grey, and had those characters been playable, I could sort of see now the simplicity of Wolverine's kit would make sense, since there would be other combat kits you could switch to when

[20:18] you were getting bored of the repetition. But all Logan, all the time, just doesn't work when his kit is this simple, when the enemies are this repetitive, and when the bosses are this bad. I know I've been a really brutal trap this review, but the honest truth is that the more

[20:41] I played this game, the more angry it made me. Like for example, it was only towards the back end of the game that I realised that you actually don't have to press any buttons during quick time events. The game will automatically complete them for you, even if you don't press anything.

[20:56] at this clip right here.

[21:16] And so I ask you, what are we doing here? Like, you've got a game where people die in horrific circumstances again and again. M17 plus rated in the US, Insomniac have said repeatedly that they want a gritty, mature

[21:28] story that isn't stealing any punches, a story intended for adults, and yet we get a game that literally plays itself at times. And when you're forced to put hands on the controller, Insomniac are so terrified that you might experience a fleeting moment of uncertainty about where to go and what to

[21:42] do that they build multiple overlapping gameplay systems to keep you constantly wrapped in cotton wool. Three separate clues pointing you to hidden chests. one of them borderline comical in this presentation.

[21:54] Playing Marvel's Wolverine is like bowling with the kids' bumpers on, but the bumpers are so narrow that it's impossible to score anything other than a strike. Oh, and the ball throws itself too. Am I exaggerating? No, I am not. If you play this for yourself, you'll see what I mean.

[22:07] This is ridiculous. It's like the Mario focus ending brought to life, and it's a genuine tipping point. Like, I guarantee you that Marvel's Wolverine will serve as a talking point in game design meetings, where developers will be like, uh, do we really need that yellow paint there?

[22:20] We don't want to go full Marvel's Wolverine, do we? That will be the legacy of this game, I think. A wake-up call and an expiration date for this philosophy of AAA game design that fills the need to coddle the lowest common denominator at the expense of the rest of us. I don't recommend this.

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