Marvel’s Wolverine, the upcoming action game from Insomniac Games and PlayStation, feels exactly like you’d expect it to. Coming from Insomniac Games, known for their hit Marvel’s Spider-Man games, that titular feral hero is a whirlwind of blades and snarls as he cuts through enemies left, right, and center.
The action over the course of the preview I played is a ton of fun, but it also feels like every other action game with a coat of yellow paint. How it changes and evolves will be a major question in the full experience. What did hit was the story and presentation, with the brief bits I saw drawing me in and reaching for the closest cigar and flannel shirt.
The X-Men don’t exist yet in Marvel’s Wolverine, just Team X.
PlayStation Canada invited us to check out the game ahead of the launch in a few weeks. The preview starts right at the beginning, showing Logan feral and living in the woods. A mysterious benefactor, who we learn is Nathaniel Essex, promises to take care of him. We cut to the present day, with Wolverine on a helicopter on a mission to save Essex, captured by longtime X-Men villain Bolivar Trask.
The X-Men don’t yet exist in this continuity, where Logan finds himself a member of Team X. Headed by Essex, the team consists of Logan and iconic adversaries Sabertooth and Mystique. Logan jumps out of the helicopter, crashing down onto the ground to begin slicing and dicing enemies on the way into the compound.
It’s cinematic and huge, with plenty of explosions and gunshots flying as Logan frantically races through everyone in his path. The first thing you do as the player is use L2 and R2 to pop out Logan’s claws, which feels great. I popped them in and out a few more times for good measure.
Wolverine and Sabertooth’s relationship is pitch-perfect.
Combat here is exactly what you’d expect from a third-person action game. Logan has a light and heavy attack, parry, and dodge. I expected Logan to feel a bit heavier, but he moves quickly and hits hard enough. As Logan fights through, he also gets access to a special move on the L2 button, where he spins around in a tornado of death. Another special move gets unlocked later: a critical knee strike that does plenty of stagger damage.
Continuing through the complex, Sabertooth and Mystique’s helicopter gets shot down, and they end up joining the fray. The relationship between Sabertooth and Wolverine is pitch-perfect, full of getting in each other’s faces and arguing. It even translates to actual combat, where Sabertooth can both steal kills and set Wolverine up for cool animations. Enemy after enemy go down to their onslaught.
At a certain point, Logan finds a wider open area with multiple alarms to take out. You can stealth, which feels fine, albeit simple, or go claws-out and start rampaging. Logan can jump and climb across rooftops, launching from one house to another to move quickly through the space. After taking out the alarms, Omega Red rains down missiles, forcing Logan into the sewers.
Marvel’s Wolverine earns its mature rating well.
There are some truly haunting moments here, living up to the game’s mature rating. Bodies upon bodies of dead mutants pile up as more are thrown in, failed experiments and merciless torture on innocents from greater evils. You can feel the weight here alongside Logan, pushing through corpses to try and get through.
We catch up with Mystique next, coming face to face with inhibitors that need to be destroyed; otherwise, you take damage from adamantium poisoning and can’t heal. Mystique is far less in your face than Sabertooth but no less deadly, transforming from enemy to enemy and shooting foes in the face.
At one point, Logan gives in to the rage, the screen fading to greys outside of Logan and tinges of red. The animations ratchet up the gore and dismemberment, cutting through enemies with ease. The first time Logan lobbed an enemy’s leg straight off, I winced, and it was truly awesome. If Logan goes down at any point, you can consume rage from the bar to heal and get back up. You eventually get to Essex, saving him from his shackles.
The story was the most engrossing part of the preview.
The preview then jumped to the end of Act 1, focusing on the Sentinel boss fight from trailers. The massive hulking robot loves swinging its arms around and dealing damage. Once the arm is down, you need to rush in and deal damage. At one point, the fight heads outside, turning more deadly with eye blasts and missile strikes. Logan eventually succeeds, taking off arms and cutting out eyes with tons of flair and bombast.
This was the end of the preview, and I did really enjoy my time with the game thus far. The bigger questions are how combat and the story evolve going forward. At this point, combat did feel relatively simple. It was a lot of pressing one button to deal damage and hitting parries, and I’m curious to see whether and how it does anything more as the game progresses.
Marvel’s Wolverine story was what had me the most invested. The performances all around are fantastic. Liam McIntyre feels like he’s always been Wolverine, clearly tortured by his past. His humanity and animalistic tendencies come out in equal measure, with Liam’s delivery always hitting the scene perfectly.
Marvel’s Wolverine feels like everything I expected from it.
Brett Gipson rules as Sabertooth, a total dick that you can’t get enough of. Troy Baker as Essex and Nicole Pacent as Mystique are equally fantastic, and I’m excited to see more of all these characters. How they might evolve into more antagonistic components and where Logan ends up are major questions I can’t wait to see answered.
Overall, Marvel’s Wolverine feels like, at least in its opening hours, everything I expected from it. The combat is fast and fun, albeit a bit simple. The story and performances are spot on, and I’m curious to see how Insomniac is able to spin the Wolverine mythos the same way they did Spider-Man. How the entire package holds up remains to be seen, but thankfully, the wait won’t be long.
Marvel’s Wolverine is available on PlayStation 5 September 15, 2026.