Wolverine — Play Journal

Platform / edition: PS5 Exclusive
Started: 09/17/26
Status: Playing
Time played: About 12 hours
Last updated: 09/24/26

Spoiler note: This game is a new release and I will be mentioning story elements. If you’d like my thoughts without spoilers just skip to my spoiler-free verdict. You have been warned.

This is a running journal. Earlier entries preserve what I thought at the time; the final verdict reflects where I landed after the experience.

Play Journal

[09/17/26] — First Impressions - Claws Out, Camera Close

My first couple of hours with Wolverine have been pretty positive overall. Logan has rejoined Team-X to help his old teammates, Sabretooth and Mystique, save their leader, Nathaniel Essex, from torture at the hands of Bolivar Trask. The production values are high, the gameplay feels good, and the pacing has kept things moving. Butchering Reavers both in and out of cutscenes is enjoyable Wolverine brutality. The Omega Red boss fight was an early highlight and probably the most fun I’ve had with the combat so far.

My biggest complaint so far is the camera. It clings so closely to Wolverine that fights can become frustratingly claustrophobic. The game throws large groups of enemies at you and seems to expect the kind of battlefield awareness and reactive parrying you’d get from an Arkham-style combat system—but you often literally can’t see the enemy attacking from behind you. Rather than making combat more intense, it’s making it frustrating.

Story-wise, though, I’m intrigued. I especially love the decision to have Nathaniel Essex—before fully becoming Mr. Sinister—essentially occupy the Charles Xavier role in Wolverine’s life. There’s a scene where Essex helps Logan navigate his memories that immediately evokes Xavier, but his body language, the display of his powers, and his overall presence make the whole thing feel subtly darker. You can already sense that this version of telepathy is more dangerous than Logan realizes.

As an X-Men fan, the idea that Wolverine and Essex have this history together is fascinating, especially given how extraordinarily long-lived both of them are. I know Nathaniel Essex isn’t exactly headed somewhere good, which makes watching this earlier version of him compelling. I hope his fall is interesting. Although this game is very clearly in its own Marvel continuity, so who knows? Maybe he won’t be the main villain?

Heh, yeah right, bub.

[09/18/26] — Chasing the Morlocks: Blood, Claws, and a Little Peace

My second extended stretch with Wolverine gave me something I wasn’t necessarily expecting: a chance to slow down and just exist in this corner of the X-Men universe.

Getting there certainly wasn’t peaceful. But when the mission starts with you showing me Trask goons interrupting Leech’s birthday party, you know I’m about to kill me some more Reavers. The chase to find and save the Morlocks delivers more of the game’s heavy, visceral action, and I’m continuing to enjoy just how physical Wolverine feels in combat. I will agree with the chorus of online critics that the game’s motorcycle section essentially autoplays itself… but it lasts moments. What follows is a truck-to-truck combat section where I once again get to slice and dice with glee. There’s a brutality to the action that suits Logan, and the game certainly isn’t afraid to lean into it. Even the cutscenes and QTEs (even though they are unfailable, and I have since turned them off entirely) do plenty to bolster that kinetic energy.

You are joined on this chase not by the other members of Team-X but by none other than Jean Grey. Evidently, in this continuity, she grew up with Callisto and the others as one of them. And she is gonna save her friends with or without Logan. But it seems no matter which universe, if Jean wants something, Logan is going to provide it. Jean’s presence is felt not just in the narrative but in the combat as well. She holds helpless Reavers aloft, just waiting for the next brutal adamantium beatdown. It’s a glory of violence through and through.

But what stuck with me afterward was the contrast.

Once the Morlocks are rescued, they return with Logan to the Essex Institute, and the game actually gives you some room to breathe. You can explore, talk to people, and spend time with characters like Leech rather than immediately being shoved toward the next fight. Jean Grey getting more time in the story is welcome too, and as an X-Men fan, there’s something genuinely comforting about simply being surrounded by all these familiar characters.

Sadly, I wish there were more to do during these stretches. I want to hang around the Institute. I want to spend more time with the Morlocks. These characters have spent so much of their fictional lives fighting for survival that getting to see them simply occupy a space together has an appeal all its own.

There’s also a small quality-of-life feature I’ve come to really appreciate: when you stumble into another ambient conversation while dialogue is already happening, the original conversation pauses and resumes once you move away. I’ve been seeing more modern games adopt this approach, and it makes exploring these quieter spaces much more enjoyable. I don’t have to choose between listening to the characters and actually wandering around.

For now, the Essex Institute feels strangely comfortable—a little refuge between all the bloodshed.

Which means, of course, that something horrible is about to happen.

I know X-Men stories. This peace isn’t going to last.

[09/21/26] — The Peace Didn’t Last

Well, I knew it was coming.

After enjoying the downtime Wolverine gave me at the Essex Institute, Logan gets overstimulated and needs to hide in his special-boy-first-person-to-have-mental-issues cabin. The peace from the Institute continues, even if it’s much more lonely. Logan reaches his cabin, finds some booze, gets a fire roaring, and vibes. Jean shows up, and it seems they are actually, maybe, hopefully, going to give Logan his romance in this universe.

But right on cue, Trask goons in VTOLs rip all that comfort away. Leech is killed. The Institute is destroyed. And Team X decides it’s time that the one and only human to ever be named Bolivar needs to be removed from existence.

The raid on Trask’s HQ pulls Sabretooth and Mystique back in, and they provide moment-to-moment help during the big showdown. Once Trask is taken down and his Sentinel prototype (because obviously) gets destroyed, we start to shift gears. Nathaniel Essex finally begins showing more of the darkness the game has been hinting at from the beginning. When Essex decides to keep Trask alive specifically so that he can torture him, Logan is ultimately the one who puts Trask out of his misery. It feels like an important distinction between these two men. Neither is exactly gentle, but there are places Essex is willing to go that Logan won’t follow.

Afterward, there is another stretch of downtime in a bar owned by Tyger. I don’t know this character, but in this continuity she is Mystique’s wife and helps Team X and the Morlocks lay low both before and after the raid on Trask. Here we get to arm wrestle Sabretooth before he gets pissed off and leaves. It seems both know Essex is crossing lines, but Logan wants out while Sabretooth wants Logan to take over the team. It’s an interesting side to their rivalry that certainly doesn’t bear much resemblance to the deep hatred the two share in the mainline 616 universe.

Meanwhile, Jean Grey has become a much bigger part of this story than I expected—and I’m very happy about it. Her companionship has become one of the highlights of the game for me. Having Jean alongside Logan gives these stretches an emotional dimension beyond simply carving through the next collection of enemies. Although, ironically, it’s also making me increasingly annoyed with Logan.

Watching him struggle to actually deal with Jean on an emotional level can be frustrating. I understand that emotional repression is practically part of Wolverine’s DNA, but there are moments when I desperately want him to demonstrate just a little more emotional maturity. Jean is right there, Logan. Use your words.

Fortunately, using his claws continues to be considerably less of a problem. And when Walter (have I mentioned Walter? He’s a dude with a dormant X-gene who works with Team X. No clue if he is original or not. He’s just Walter.) gets kidnapped by… THE HAND?

Oh, I see. Walter. Walter gets kidnapped by The Hand. He is very important, I guess, due to being a legally distinct Hank McCoy. Wait. Walter. Hank. Hmm…

Anyway.

Combat keeps getting better as the game introduces encounters that demand more reactive play. Fighting the Hand has made parrying much more satisfying. There’s a rhythm developing now that I wasn’t quite feeling during those earliest encounters, and successfully reading and countering the Hand ninjas makes the combat system shine.

It’s also just cool getting this much of the Hand in a story that isn’t centered on Daredevil. They’re such a familiar part of that corner of Marvel that seeing them play a substantial role in Wolverine’s world gives the game another connection to the wider universe without making it feel forced. Lady Deathstrike seems to be leading them, so we need to handle all of that. And some other stuff happens and yada yada and then there is a magic sarcophagus that makes people into mutants. It makes Walter into a beast (not Beast, though, you bloodthirsty litigious bastards. LEGALLY DISTINCT! He is actually a character called Sasquatch from the comics. The more you know!) and then Jean has to use it to save Logan after Deathstrike stabs him with a magic sword. He sees the past, and he might be a Horseman of Apocalypse? I don’t know. This was a long session, and a lot happened. Still processing.

Anyway… About halfway through. The story is taking risks, doing interesting stuff. The combat keeps getting more fun. Really not seeing why the game got so much hate. It’s not breaking a lot of new ground here, but hell, I’m enjoying the ride.

Final Verdict

Verdict: Pending

I have not reached a final verdict yet. You got baited. Aren’t I a stinker?