Is Wolverine Worth $70?
This Tuesday, September 15, Marvel's Wolverine arrives on PS5 at $69.99, and the reviews that landed last week cannot agree on what that money buys. Hardcore Gamer gave it 5 out of 5 and called it a game "doing for the character what Marvel's Spider-Man did for Spider-Man." Giant Bomb's Shawn McDowell gave it 2.5 out of 5 and wrote that its "mostly-good combat getting constantly dragged down by mediocre storytelling, poor pacing, and an underwhelming amount of player agency left me very bored far too often." In between sit IGN's 6 out of 10, GameSpot's 6, Eurogamer's 3 out of 5 and 8s from Push Square and TheSixthAxis.
At the time of writing, the game holds a 79 average from OpenCritic's top critics, with 75 percent of 61 critics recommending it, and a 78 on Metacritic. Those numbers hide the split rather than settle it. Read the reviews themselves and something more useful turns up: the critics agree on nearly everything except one question, and that question is the one to answer before you pay full price.
What nobody argues about
The glowing reviews and the harsh ones stop to praise the same thing: Liam McIntyre's Logan, a gentler and more openly wounded man than the one most of us carry around from the films. TheGamer's George Foster says McIntyre "gives a standout performance as Logan, portraying him as a much more sympathetic character" who is not forever one insult away from a bar fight. Hardcore Gamer's Kevin Dunsmore goes furthest, rating the performance "on par or better than Hugh Jackman's legendary run as the character." Even the low scores concede it. IGN's Simon Cardy, at 6 out of 10, credits the game's "strong character work" in the same sentence where he marks it down. Eurogamer's Chris Tapsell, at 3 out of 5, puts it plainly: "Wolverine's characterisation is a bright spot in this otherwise underwhelming, old-school romp that reminds us how far action games have come."
The story around him is an original one. Logan rejoins Team X, the mutant task force he walked away from three years earlier, to stop Bolivar Trask, a billionaire industrialist whose Reavers militia is abducting mutants. The route runs through Canada, Japan and the island nation of Madripoor, with The Hand and Deathstrike waiting along the way. It shares continuity with Insomniac's Spider-Man games, but it is not built like them. PlayStation's own store page is blunt about it: "It is not set in an open world." Push Square's Liam Croft calls it "a strictly linear experience that demands you play it the way it wants you to." Hardcore Gamer counts "only three side activities": collecting whisky, earning suit materials and the Nightmare Cabin trials. The campaign is not short, though. PlayStation Universe put a single playthrough at "around eighteen or so hours" and Push Square describes a campaign of roughly 20.
The fight: do the claws last?
The split is the claws, and specifically whether tearing through Trask's soldiers and The Hand still thrills in the back half the way it does in the opening missions.
The case against is consistent. Cardy's verdict at IGN is that the "slick and satisfying combat wears thin well before its conclusion" and that the character work cannot rescue it. GameSpot's Tamoor Hussain, also at 6 out of 10, writes: "At best, it's a fun but forgettable experience that'll entertain you for a few hours." And the line that will sting Spider-Man fans comes from one of the kinder reviews. TheGamer gave the game 4 out of 5 and still wrote that "a few more mechanics and combos would have gone a long way to fleshing encounters out and giving Logan some of the creativity that made Spider-Man so memorable."
The case for is just as firm. COGconnected's James Paley, who gave it 100, says "the combat flows beautifully, steadily evolving into something wondrous to behold." DualShockers' Christian Bognar, at 8.5 out of 10, says the exact opposite of IGN: "The combat is some of the best the developer has put out, delivering nonstop, adrenaline-inducing action that will keep players hooked from beginning to end." Hardcore Gamer calls the system "brutal, fun to master, and surprisingly deep." TheSixthAxis, at 8 out of 10, splits the difference: "Wolverine's blood-soaked combat can feel more restrained and limited, but this globetrotting odyssey never outstays its welcome".
Read enough of them and the disagreement turns out to be about expectations more than quality. PlayStation LifeStyle's Shaan Joshi, at 7 out of 10, names it: "It's a bit of a shame that Marvel's Wolverine isn't able to crawl out from under the shadow of its spiritual predecessors." Even DualShockers, one of the fans, calls it "very on-rails compared to the developer's other games" and still scores it 8.5. If you are hoping for Spider-Man with claws, the reviews are warning you off. A straight-line brawler with an unusually tender Logan at the center is a much easier sell, and that is the game its fans are describing. Push Square's Croft, who gave it 8 out of 10, means it as a compliment when he writes: "You play this game to tear enemies limb from limb over and over again".
What the fighting looks like
The verdict
So, is Marvel's Wolverine worth $70? For most people, not yet. It is a good game at the wrong price for anyone who is not already sure they want exactly what it is. Here is how to tell which camp you are in.
- Buy it this week if Wolverine is the reason you care about superhero games at all. It is the first standalone Wolverine game since 2009's X-Men Origins: Wolverine, and none of the reviews we read dispute that the man at its center is worth your time. The same goes if story-led, straight-line PlayStation action is your favorite genre. An 18 to 20 hour campaign with New Game Plus, Mission Replay and Nightmare Challenges is not thin for the money.
- Wait for a sale if you are coming off the Spider-Man games and hoping for their playground. The part the critics love, McIntyre's Logan, will be exactly as good at a lower price. The part they argue about is a gamble better taken for less. At least one top critic agrees: ACG's Jeremy Penter filed his OpenCritic verdict as "Wait for Sale" rather than a score.
- Skip it if repetitive combat is what makes you put a controller down, or if you want a world to roam between fights. A linear game does not get bigger on sale. Gore alone is not a reason to pass, though. Insomniac, writing on the PlayStation Blog, calls the game "unapologetically violent and gory." It also ships with toggles for blood, dismemberment and adult language, plus more than 100 accessibility features.
Whichever camp you are in, skip the $79.99 Digital Deluxe Edition. Insomniac says outright that its extra suits and claws "are purely cosmetic." Beyond those you get a few Technique Points and four PlayStation avatars.
While you wait
The wait camp is not short of things to play. God of War is still the high bar for story-first PlayStation action: Santa Monica Studio's reboot is "presented in a continuous shot, with no camera cuts or loading screens." If focused, character-driven action is what drew you to Wolverine, start there. Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 share Wolverine's universe and are the open-world version of this studio that the lukewarm reviews keep missing. And if you need claws right now, Logan is the grown-up Wolverine story to beat: the R-rated film Hugh Jackman made as his goodbye to the role, and the first live-action superhero film nominated for a screenwriting Oscar.
