I won’t call myself a die-hard X-Men fan. I have seen all the movies, and I have enjoyed each one of them. But I haven’t really read the comics, dug deeper into the lore, or any of the fan theories. But, after playing Marvel’s Wolverine, I am proud to announce that I know a lot more about the mutants that have often ignited discussions in various Reddit threads than I did previously.
I honestly don’t remember the last time a game had me so deeply invested in it – especially when I wasn’t playing it. I found myself thinking about certain moments, conversations and characters, and that’s saying something!
Wolverine just makes you want to keep going, not just because you want to know what happens next, but because you actually care about the people involved.
The game costs Rs 5,499 and is a PlayStation exclusive. It has also been one of the most-awaited games this year. But, does it live up to the hype? After spending hours as Logan in a brutal yet emotional world, here is what I think.
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Before I talk about the game in depth, I have to first talk about how I played it because that makes a huge difference to the entire experience. I played the game on a PS5 Pro connected to my 55-inch OLED TV and there were moments when I forgot I was, well, just playing a game.
Everything here felt incredibly fluid and smooth, especially during the action sequences. The world itself is gorgeous but it is the reflections that really caught my attention. Water, glass and other reflective surfaces looked incredibly realistic (thanks to ray-tracing), and combined with an OLED panel, the whole environment had this depth that made me want to stop and simply look around.
I actually died once or twice because I was too busy admiring the atmosphere around me. Not my proudest gaming moments, but I am willing to blame the graphics.
The environments are superbly designed too. There is enough detail around you to make the world feel like a place rather than just a backdrop for Logan to run through.
The haptic feedback on my DualSense controller further enhanced my experience. I could feel each footstep through the controller, and that gave me an adrenaline rush each time I was walking into something dangerous. The controller speaker is also used during missions, and hearing certain audio cues directly from the controller made the experience feel more immediate.
Now, onto the other details.
Marvel’s Wolverine makes you want to know what happens next. Almost immediately. When I first started playing the game on a Wednesday night, I remember thinking to just play for an hour and go to sleep. But before I knew it, I was already 5 hours into the game and didn’t want to put the controller down. And that doesn’t happen very often now.
Now that we have established how engaging the story is, let’s come to the pacing. I have played plenty of games where I enjoyed the gameplay but eventually started skipping through conversations because I just wanted to get back to the action part. That wasn’t the case here. Marvel’s Wolverine knows when to slow things down and lets you spend some time with the characters.
There are some super intense missions here, but then the game throws in these much quieter and sweeter moments as well that get you emotionally invested. One of my favourites involved finding a couple of drawings to convince a kid to take a blood test. Now on paper, that may sound like a very small part of a superhero game. But when you actually experience it, you will understand why it matters.
The dialogues here also add a lot of personality to the experience. And no, I am not talking about endless superhero one-liners. But the kind of dialogues that fit naturally and might make you smile sometimes and think deeper the next.
For instance, there is a part where Wolverine is in the middle of an intense fight, almost struggling to stay alive. This is when the villain says, ‘No one can survive this’. But Wolverine responds with, “You haven’t met me, bub.”
Then there is a point when he is seen talking about himself and saying his iconic line, “I’m the best there is at what I do but what I do best isn’t very nice”
Now beyond these iconic dialogues, the game also handles the smaller, seemingly insignificant conversations, admirably.
For instance, at one point, Jean, and Logan are talking about his childhood while roaming around a building. While being engaged in a dialogue with Jean, I spotted a cook in the kitchen and decided to go talk to her instead. Now instead of simply cutting off his conversation with Jean and moving on, Logan first says, “Sorry, just a minute.”
He then talks to the cook, and once that conversation is over, he goes back to Jean and says, “Yeah, you were saying.”
This is such a tiny detail that most players could easily miss it. But these are exactly the kind of details that make the characters feel like they are actually present in the world. Logan doesn’t behave like an avatar waiting for me to finish clicking through conversations. He feels like a person who was in the middle of a conversation, got distracted, and then came back to it.
While the story kept me playing, the characters are what made me care.
Logan, in particular, is much more than just the guy with claws. Before he became Wolverine, he was Logan, and the game does a great job of showing that side of him. We all know how Logan struggles with anger, guilt and loneliness. Those details about him are captured wonderfully in the story.
The facial expressions of all characters deserve a special mention as well because they make a huge difference. You can actually see the emotions on their faces during conversations. Anger, frustration, sadness, concern and even those quieter moments where the characters don’t need to say much are all conveyed through their expressions.
There is one early moment where Logan looks at a supporting character and she smiles at him. It lasts only a few seconds, but for some reason, that tiny interaction has stayed with me.
Talking of the supporting characters, they are super interesting too and their interactions with Logan help bring out different sides of him. Sometimes he is sarcastic, sometimes he is protective, and sometimes he is just clearly fed up with whatever is happening around him.
This is a superhero game. Which means that combat isn’t just a part of the experience, it is actually THE experience and something that a lot of people will be buying the game for.
What I loved about it is how I didn’t have to spend hours trying to figure out what I was doing. You attack with Square, rely on the Triangle button for combos and leap attacks, parry with L1, dodge with O, and give devastating rage attacks with L2+R2.
In a nutshell, it all feels fast, intense, and appropriately brutal for a Wolverine game.
But, it can become a little repetitive after a while. Especially when you are relying on similar attacks during encounters. The game does keep introducing new abilities though. But until you unlock all of them, the combat is sort of underwhelming.
One thing that stands out about the combat is how Logan’s suit gets damaged and torn during fights, which sounds like a small detail but makes the encounters feel more impactful. You don’t just walk out of every fight looking exactly the way you did when you entered it.
And there is another little gameplay decision that I absolutely loved- you don’t have to manually crouch every time you walk through bushes.
Logan automatically crouches when moving through them. And if you are someone who gets unnecessarily irritated when games make you press a button for every tiny movement, you will adore this little detail. You can also toggle sprint as per your style and decide if you want to assign it to a particular button, or just toggle it forever. In my case, I kept it on ‘Toggle and release’ which meant that Logan starts sprinting when I press R2 just once.
Overall, the combat and gameplay is super fun and will keep you hooked for hours. Be it climbing a tall building, sliding through elevator shafts with the help of your claws, or taking out waves of enemies, you will enjoy each and every minute of the game. And for a Wolverine game, that is enough.
I started Marvel’s Wolverine as someone who has enjoyed the X-Men movies but wouldn’t exactly call herself an X-Men fan. I didn’t know the comics inside out, I wasn’t following every fan theory on Reddit, and I definitely didn’t expect this game to suddenly make me want to know more about the mutants and their world.
But here we are.
Marvel’s Wolverine managed to pull me into its world almost instantly. And once I picked up that controller, there was no going back.
I went in thinking I would play Wolverine. But somewhere along the way, I ended up getting invested in Logan. And ain’t that what we all are about, bub?
Rating: 9/10