Key Preview Takeaways:
- Combat is as violent as you'd want from Wolverine, with a cleverly implemented Rage Meter, but it doesn't have the same ability to personalize your attacks as Spider-Man.
- The story is intriguing, offering up a pre-X-Men Logan working alongside a couple of mutants we tend to know as foes.
- The non-combat Lowtown area allows for a welcome change-of-pace and chance for character development. We hope the full game has more of these kinds of "exhale" moments.
If Insomniac has proved anything over the last eight years, it’s that they know how to make a hell of a superhero game. Spider-Man remains one of the PlayStation 4’s defining action games and a shining example of open-world design, as are both of its follow-ups. Now they’re looking to replicate that magic with Wolverine, albeit this time as a traditional linear AAA action game. I got to play about two and half hours at a recent preview event, and while my impressions are mostly glowingly positive, I did come away with a few questions and concerns.
Right from the start of my demo, it was clear that this is a very different kind of Wolverine story than what I was used to. The X-Men haven’t been formed yet; Wolverine, Sabertooth, and Mystique are all buds and part of a three-person task force known as Team X; and they’re all led by a not-yet-sinister-looking man named Nathaniel Essex, who also serves as their mentor and someone looking to help mutants everywhere.
That puts them in direct opposition with the mutant-hating Bolivar Trask, and the very first mission of the game has Team X setting out to rescue their mentor from his clutches. It didn’t take long after picking up the controller for me to pop out my claws, leap 20 feet towards a poor sap, and ventilate his body with six holes. My first reaction to the combat in Wolverine was very simply, “Yep, this is exactly what I want a Wolverine game to feel like.” Combat is fast, vicious, and brutal, even if it is, fundamentally, similar to what Insomniac has already done with Spider-Man.
Fight Like an Animal
Much like how Spider-Man was able to zip around the battlefield with his webs, Logan can use a gap-closing leap attack to instantly get right up in the face of an enemy, and then proceed to shred them with a basic melee claw combo, or a powerful kick that can break shields and knock enemies back. That kick ends up being one of the most defining aspects of Wolverine's combat, as you can use it both to knock enemies off cliffs or into walls, and once they’re stunned against a wall, you can utilize a highly damaging barrage attack that will generally defeat an enemy right away.
On the defensive side, Wolverine is a parry driven game, so you’ll need to always have your finger hovering over that L1 button, ready to press it on a split second’s notice, because enemies do not wait around for their turn. They are very aggressive, and while the fodder baddies can be dispatched fairly easily, most of the cybernetically enhanced ones have very sturdy defenses that strongly encourage you to parry their attacks in order to open them up. Wolverine also has access to a variety of special moves by holding L2 and pressing a face button, which are generally reserved for stronger attacks that either do big single-target damage, deal damage spread out over an area around Wolverine, grant him a limited time buff, etc. These special moves are all tied to individual cool downs rather than a resource that builds up over the course of combat.
The one resource that you do have to keep an eye on is Wolverine’s rage, which is gained by simply dealing damage and killing enemies, but slowly diminishes when you’re not actively slicing and dicing. It’s a mechanic meant to encourage all-out aggression, which feels very on brand for Wolverine. There are three tiers of Rage that you can unlock by filling the meter. The first tier is by default and doesn’t come with any benefits. Once you reach tier 2 though, you gain extra damage on your combo finishers, and most importantly you’re able to go into your last stand when you lose all of your health. This was a neat way to incorporate Logan’s healing factor into the combat design, by making it so that as long as Wolverine has a bar of rage in the tank, he can essentially come back from the dead by trading in his rage meter for health. If he goes down without a full bar of rage to spare though, it’s game over and back to the last checkpoint for you.
At Rage Tier 3 though is where the party starts. Once he hits that rage threshold, the background turns gray, the enemies get highlighted in red, and all of Wolverine’s attacks do dramatically increased damage, with most weaker enemies being executable immediately. This lets you throw caution to the wind and just tear apart entire groups of enemies in quick order. It is quite simply the epitome of the Wolverine power fantasy.
My overall impression of combat based on what I’ve played is that it’s all fundamentally sound, very satisfying, and does a great job of evoking the spirit of Wolverine, but at the same time, it felt like it was missing an element of creativity that I always look for in an action game. One of the joys of Spider-Man’s combat, for example, was all of the fun things you could do that weren’t necessarily the optimal way of clearing a combat encounter, but allowed you to break away from the monotony of just punch, parry, punch, parry, punch, parry, etc. You could bounce off walls, mantle over enemies, slide under them, web them up, yank away their weapons, swing them around, launch them up for an air combo, knock them away, pull them back, etc. Wolverine mostly just angrily stabs things, and while he is the best there is at what he does, I did wish that what does offered a bit more variety.
Story Time
Now, to be fair, there are some fun ways that Insomniac encourages you to use the environment to your advantage, like kicking an enemy into a forklift is always a good time; and there are occasional team-ups that organically feature combination attacks between you and your partner, much like what was seen in Spider-Man 2 and Miles Morales. But on a base level, I do have some concerns about how Wolverine’s combat will remain engaging throughout the entire campaign. It’s certainly possible for that depth to be uncovered as I get deeper into the game. There is, after all, a skill tree with a variety of techniques and special moves that I only scratched the surface of, along with adaptation points that can be spent on a variety of character upgrades. My hope is that those later upgrades and skills add some extra flavor to Wolverine’s combat and aren’t just more powerful techniques that scale his strength to meet the increased difficulty of later enemies and bosses.
Interestingly, the thing that impressed me most about Wolverine was actually the direction of the story. You’ve got Wolverine on a team with Mystique and Sabretooth, during a time before the forming of the X-Men, with the addition of Jean Grey and Nathaniel Essex as two people that are very important to Wolverine, but also have two very different world views. There are all very combustible elements in play, and I’m excited to see where it all goes. Doubly so due to the fact that it’s written by Walt Williams of Spec Ops: The Line fame, who is one of the best video game writers in the business.
Thus far, the performances have been excellent as well. Liam McIntyre’s portrayal of Wolverine is very grounded and paints the picture of a man bottling up a lot of anger and pain, but still has that rough edge and ruthless aggression that fans expect from the character. I only got to see a little bit of Troy Baker’s Nathaniel Essex, but so far it’s shaping up to yet another memorable and nuanced performance in his stacked resume. I got to see different sides of both Mystique and Sabertooth than what I’m used to, and I’m very much looking forward to seeing where Nicole Pacent and Brett Gipson take their respective characters.
While much of the demo was spent with Wolverine snarling, growling, and prowling as he found new baddies to stick his claws into, there was one notable section that was much more quiet and subdued, and it actually ended up being my favorite stretch of gameplay. In it, Wolverine wanders through Lowtown, which is a bit of a safe haven for mutants to congregate. I was able to strike up conversations with fellow mutants, engage in some not-so-friendly arm wrestling with Sabertooth, play a revealing game of Never Have I Ever with Mystique, and even find a handful of Easter eggs tucked away. It was a welcome reprieve from all of the action, and I hope there are more moments like this where I get to learn more about the characters that inhabit the world.
Sharpen Your Claws
Overall, I walked away from my time with Wolverine impressed, but not thoroughly blown away. It’s clear that Insomniac is still holding a lot of cards close to its chest with regards to the story, and that’s the element that has proved to be most interesting to me thus far. Combat absolutely nails the spirit of Wolverine and is very fundamentally sound, but leaves me with some questions as to how it will hold up over the course of the entire campaign. We’ll see how it all pans out when Wolverine releases on PlayStation 5 on September 15.
Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can find him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
