Review: Marvel's Wolverine offers intense combat and strong performances but lacks Spider-Man's innovation

On Tuesday, Sony will release Marvel's Wolverine - the biggest game exclusive to the PlayStation 5 this year.

It's made by Insomniac, the studio responsible for the recent Spider-Man titles, which have sold 50 million copies in recent years.

But unlike the friendly neighbourhood superhero, Wolverine has a Pegi-18 rating in the UK, meaning a child cannot legally buy the game, and it contains considerable levels of blood, gore and violence.

It represents a gamble for the studio responsible for some of Sony's biggest hits - will it turn out to have been worth it?

This review does not reveal the game's biggest moments, but beware minor spoilers for some of the characters that appear and a few early sequences. Some of the images contain blood.

There are some stealth options, but I generally ignored them and went in with my claws out. The game didn't penalise me for this.

You also unlock a slew of abilities, much like other games in the genre, meaning you get even more powerful as the game rumbles on.

And a clever system allows you to spend the rage you have accumulated to regenerate your health.

The combat kept me hooked the whole way through the game, which took about 20 hours to get to the end credits. My colleague was faster, clocking in at about 15 hours.

When Spider-Man released in 2018, it set a new standard for superhero games with an open-world New York City which you could freely (and entertainingly) explore by web-slinging through the skies.

It was so influential that it spawned a popular online gag, pointing fun at reviewers who couldn't help but repeat a cliché, external about the game making them feel like Spider-Man.

"There's a significant shake-up happening here in game design terms," freelance game critic Emma Kent told me.

"Insomniac is moving away from Spider-Man's open world formula to adopt a linear structure for Wolverine.

"That means less open exploration, and a more curated path through the game world."

It adds to the gamble that comes with the game having such graphic violence.

"Peter Parker and Miles Morales would go out of their way to avoid killing enemies - stringing them up or gluing them against walls with his webs - and there was no real gore to speak of," Kent said.

"Some games truly revel in showing detailed and over-exaggerated gore, but the violence in Marvel's Wolverine doesn't feel particularly gratuitous.

"When you build up a sense of flow, it really does feel like you're rampaging through dozens of enemies, and I think the blood splashes are an important way of displaying the carnage you're causing."

The reality is by having a higher age rating than Spider-Man, it is by definition reducing the amount of people who can buy the game. And the game's director Mike Daly accepted this came with a risk.

"Even though this character appeals to kids, making a game that is explicitly like, 'sorry, this is not for kids, you should not play this game' - it does reduce the scope," he said.

"But I think there was no other way to do it. That was the cost of doing business if we really wanted to set a game with this character in this universe."

One thing I didn't expect was the game's reliance on its performers.

Gameplay is frequently interrupted with cutscenes, which will I'm sure prove divisive.

Nonetheless, the acting is top drawer, with the standout being veteran performer Troy Baker (known for many roles including Joel in The Last of Us) who puts in a memorable performance as Nathaniel Essex.

Liam McIntyre, who plays Wolverine, told BBC Newsbeat he was "looking forward to people playing it".

"I'm so proud that people are resonating with the story, with the performances, the character," he said.

"This is such an astoundingly good character piece.

"I'm so happy that I've been able to make a Wolverine that hopefully people love."

And to that point - when Hugh Jackman's famous take on the character last appeared on the big screen in 2024's Deadpool & Wolverine, it made $205m (then £160m) on opening weekend in the US - the best ever opening for an R-rated film.

It all suggests Sony's gamble may be a safer bet than it first seems.

I'll avoid discussing the story so as not to spoil it, but suffice to say I was engaged, even if at times I felt I was spending too long watching videos and not enough time using the controller.

Clearly the developers were inspired by narrative adventures like Uncharted for this kind of storytelling, and the gameplay even feels similar at times with chase and climbing sequences.

And while that game was genre-defining, it came out almost 20 years ago, so it's hardly a favourable comparison.

In fact, perhaps the biggest issue for Wolverine is that it doesn't reinvent the wheel like Spider-Man did.

It's a game packed with tight combat and excellent performances, but it never threatens to meet the genre-defining heights of Insomniac's previous offering.

And Daly said there was a "monumental" amount of pressure that came with making the game following the success of Spider-Man - but as to whether the gamble paid off, he took a Zen view.

"I measure success when I hear people talk to me about the game, who are Wolverine fans, and they say 'thank you for making this, you nailed it'," he said.

"If I hear that, it's like, yes, we did it. That's what we set out to do."