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.
You play as Logan, aka Wolverine, the comic book superhero that can self-heal and has retractable claws. Donning the famous yellow-and-black outfit (among others), you hack and slash your way through hordes of enemies. The combat is free-flowing and easy to pick up, as Wolverine stabs and slices his foes with copious amounts of blood on display.
Still, some may feel it doesn't go far enough. 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.
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