Marvel's Wolverine Review - A Rare Miss from Insomniac Games

A full-game review after more than 100 hours, a New Game Plus run, and the Platinum Trophy.

Spoiler notice: The opening sections discuss my overall experience without revealing the ending. A clearly marked section later in this review contains major ending spoilers. The final section also includes my personal hopes for a possible follow-up.

Marvel’s Wolverine is a game I had fun playing and still came away disappointed with. That is a frustrating place to land, especially with a studio I have loved for so many years. Insomniac Games has made some of my favorite games, and I went into this one genuinely excited to see what its team would do with Logan. After spending more than 100 hours with the game, earning the Platinum Trophy, and returning for New Game Plus, my feelings are settled: this is a rare swing and a miss for me.

There is a lot here that I appreciate. The performances are a highlight. The game looks fantastic, and my experience was technically smooth, with little to no trouble from bugs. I enjoyed working through the collectibles and the nightmare challenges. There were also moments in the story that caught my attention and made me think it was about to become something I would really love.

The trouble is that the story kept losing me. Too often, the promise of a moment felt greater than its eventual payoff. By the time I reached the ending, I was left thinking about how much more satisfying this journey could have been. I respect the work that went into it, but I cannot pretend it connected with me the way I had hoped.

Why I was so excited

My love for Insomniac goes back well before its Marvel games. I loved the studio’s Spyro the Dragon games, I loved Resistance, and its catalogue has given me plenty of reasons to keep looking forward to whatever comes next. That history matters because I approached Wolverine with real affection for the people making it and confidence in what they could deliver.

Marvel’s Spider-Man from 2018 remains a favorite of mine. During the PlayStation 5 generation, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 have all given me experiences I value. They are different games with different strengths, but they helped build the excitement I brought into Wolverine.

I wanted to see the studio bring that same ability to make a character’s journey matter to Logan. Wolverine gives a storyteller so much to work with: a complicated identity, a painful past, and the possibility of finding something worth holding on to. I was interested in spending time with this version of the character and seeing where his story would leave him.

High expectations can make a disappointment sting more, but I do not think my reaction comes down to expecting perfection. I can enjoy a game with flaws. I have enjoyed plenty of games that other people did not connect with, and I have had reservations about games that others loved. Here, the recurring issue was that the story itself was not giving me the satisfaction I wanted from it.

The cast gives the game some of its strongest material

Liam McIntyre is great as Logan. His performance is one of the clearest positives I can take away from the game, and I want to give him credit for that. Even when I was frustrated with a narrative decision, I could still appreciate the work he was doing with the character. My disappointment with the story never stopped me from recognizing a strong lead performance.

Krizia Bajos is another major highlight as Jean Grey. I really loved this version of Jean, and her performance is a big part of that. She was one of the characters I most enjoyed in the experience, and she is someone I would be excited to see again if Insomniac continues exploring this side of Marvel.

That distinction matters to my review. I can admire a performance and still feel that the surrounding story lets it down. In fact, liking these characters makes some of the missed opportunities more frustrating. When I care about the people on screen, I want the writing to give that connection room to develop and an ending that rewards it.

The cast helped keep me invested through sections where my interest in the broader narrative was slipping. I finished the game with genuine appreciation for its performers. Whatever my issues with the finished story, I would be glad to see McIntyre and Bajos return to these roles.

A beautiful game that ran well for me

Visually, Marvel’s Wolverine is impressive. I have very little hesitation about calling its presentation one of its strengths. It looks like a game made with a great deal of care, and I enjoyed taking it in even during stretches when the storytelling was not working for me.

My experience with performance was also very positive. I had little to no trouble with bugs across my time playing. I cannot speak for everyone else’s playthrough, but technical problems were not what brought down my enjoyment. The game ran well for me, and that deserves to be part of an honest assessment.

That left me with a fairly clear separation between what I admired and what disappointed me. I could appreciate the presentation and have a good time playing, then reach a story beat that left me cold. The game was capable of holding my attention in the moment while still struggling to make the larger journey feel rewarding.

I do not want those strengths to disappear beneath a negative headline. A rare miss can still contain excellent work. In this case, the cast and presentation gave me real reasons to stay engaged, even though they could not resolve my problems with the story.

Why I kept playing

I spent more than 100 hours with Wolverine. I completed a New Game Plus run and earned the Platinum Trophy. Those details are useful because they describe the experience behind this review: I gave the game a substantial amount of my time, including time beyond a single trip through the story.

I enjoyed going after the collectibles and working through the nightmare challenges. Those activities gave me reasons to keep playing, and I had fun with them. Returning for New Game Plus also let me spend more time with a game whose moment-to-moment experience I could enjoy, even with my larger reservations.

Playtime, though, does not tell the whole story of how a game left me feeling. Completing everything I wanted to do did not make me happier with the narrative. I could enjoy another session, make progress toward completion, and still come back to the same criticism when I thought about the game as a whole.

I think that is something reviews should leave room for. A player can find value in a game and still finish it disappointed. My time with Wolverine gave me enjoyable hours and a story I wanted to like more than I ultimately did. Both are part of my experience, and the verdict needs to reflect both.

The story struggles to turn promise into payoff

My biggest problem with Wolverine is that its story repeatedly felt less compelling than the individual elements around it. I liked the cast. I liked spending time with certain characters. There were moments that made me interested in what might happen next. Yet that interest did not consistently build into a stronger feeling about the overall narrative.

At several points, I thought the game was setting up something that would give the journey more weight. Then the follow-through fell short for me. That pattern made it harder to trust the next promising moment. I kept hoping the story would gather its strongest ideas and give them a conclusion that brought everything together.

For me, a character-driven game earns a lot of its lasting impact through what the journey changes. I want to feel that the experiences a character has gone through will matter to the person they become. That does not require an uplifting ending or a simple resolution. I am happy for a story to be painful, complicated, or unsettling if the destination feels convincing.

Wolverine did not give me enough of that sense of progression and payoff. My frustration was already there before the finale, and the ending made it much stronger. It became the clearest example of why the story did not connect with me as deeply as I wanted it to.

Major ending spoilers begin here

Warning: The following section discusses Logan’s condition at the end of Marvel’s Wolverine. Stop here if you want to discover the ending for yourself.

I really did not like Logan losing his memories again at the end. After following this journey, I wanted to see what he would do with the things he had been through and the understanding he had gained. Having him forget once more left me with a strong sense of frustration. It felt as though the story had taken away too much of the personal progress I had been waiting to see carry forward.

Memory is an important part of Wolverine’s identity, and I understand why a story about him would return to it. My objection is to how that choice landed at the end of this particular game. Spending so much time with his journey made me want a payoff that allowed its emotional consequences to remain present for him.

I can understand the appeal of a painful ending, or the idea that an enormous cost can make a conclusion more affecting. I simply did not find this particular cost satisfying. The ending left me feeling distanced from Logan’s journey at the very point where I wanted it to stay with me most.

When I describe the journey as feeling undermined, I am talking about that emotional response. The events still happened. Other characters can still be affected by them. What frustrated me was the feeling that Logan’s relationship with his own experience had been pushed back toward familiar uncertainty, leaving me less interested in where he would go next than I had expected to be.

That is where the story lost me most decisively. I wanted to leave the game thinking about the person Logan had become through everything he endured. Instead, I was stuck on what the ending had taken away from him and how much less rewarding that made the whole experience feel to me.

Someone else may find the same decision tragic and effective. I can respect that response. For me, it brought together the problems I had been having with the story’s payoff, and it is a large part of why I cannot place this game alongside my favorite Insomniac titles.

My hopes for a follow-up

I would welcome a story expansion if Insomniac chose to make one. There are performances and characters here that I would enjoy spending more time with. Still, I am not building my opinion around the possibility of additional story content. I am judging the game I played, and an expansion is something I would be interested in rather than something I am counting on.

If this version of the Marvel universe continues, my own prediction is that a broader X-Men game could be the more exciting next step. I can imagine the follow-up taking the name Marvel’s X-Men rather than Marvel’s Wolverine 2, with Logan becoming part of a larger ensemble. That is my speculation about a possible direction, not an announcement or a confirmed title.

I would especially love the chance to play as Jean Grey alongside other members of the X-Men. She was such a strong part of this game for me that expanding her role would immediately get my attention. A team story could also offer different relationships and perspectives for a future game to explore.

What I would want most is a story that gives its characters meaningful progress and lets that progress carry weight. A larger cast and a different title would only be a starting point. The reason to return would be seeing these characters develop in a way that leaves me more satisfied with where their journey takes them.

My verdict

Marvel’s Wolverine is a 6 out of 10 for me. I had fun with it, I appreciated the cast, and I was impressed by how it looked and how well it ran during my experience. The collectibles and nightmare challenges gave me enjoyable reasons to keep playing. There is plenty of work here that deserves recognition.

The story, however, was too uneven for me, and the ending left me deeply disappointed. That carries a lot of weight in my assessment of a game I was so excited to experience. I wanted Logan’s journey to stay with me for different reasons than it ultimately did.

If you mainly want to spend time with Wolverine and appreciate strong performances and presentation, you may find more to love here than I did. If the story and its payoff are central to what you want from this game, those were the areas that let me down. I cannot give it the enthusiastic recommendation I hoped I would be able to give.

Will I play it again someday? Probably. I just do not feel the urge to return for a while. My respect for Insomniac remains, along with my appreciation for the games it has given me over the years. This one sits much lower on my personal list.

Final verdict: A rare swing and a miss from a studio I love.

Personal score: 6/10

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