Wolverine Updates Will Address Major Fan Blowback, Dev Confirms
Overview & Key Takeaways
Marvel's Wolverine developer Insomniac promises updates to the game following overwhelming negative player feedback
Sony is finally releasing Marvel's Wolverine today, but developer Insomniac Games is already hard at work fixing some of the game's biggest problems. This comes in response to the overwhelmingly negative critical response the game received before launch, which has seemingly already dashed any GOTY hopes and put an end to a long-running streak for Sony.
James Stevenson, Insomniac’s director of communications and marketing, posted on X a few hours before Wolverine's official release to share the news. Stevenson wrote that the studio has "been 100% listening over the last few days and the team has been cooking hard today in response to some of the feedback." He finished the short post off by adding, "In case you were wondering what that smell out of our kitchen was." That last bit could hint that Insomniac plans on addressing the controversial scent trails that have become a major talking point about the game.
What's the deal with Wolverine's scent trails?
Image: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon
Throughout the story, Wolverine will see colorful scent trails that lead him to objects or designate the proper route through a given level. Wolverine was always advertised as a more traditional linear experience, as opposed to the open-world freedom of Insomniac's Spider-Man games. Still, many reviews felt that Insomniac’s systems made Wolverine play like a game with guardrails that constantly leads the player throughout the experience for fear that they might go off the intended path. The scent paths have become the lightning rod for all these complaints and fans (who haven't actually played the game until today) latched on to them in increasingly bad faith arguments.
Stevenson's assurance that Insomniac plans on rolling out more updates for Wolverine to improve the experience is good, but the updates may not actually be able to rectify the core flaws of the game. In our review, we said that the moment-to-moment combat may be serviceable but that it isn't enough because it is "completely at odds with the story Insomniac struggles to tell." Furthermore, "the entire emotional crux of the story falls apart because the action has to feel fun, fluid, and tantalizingly violent at all times. I never believe that Logan is holding something back, because I as a player never butt up against any friction that encourages me to hold back."
Marvel's Wolverine is available now exclusively on PlayStation 5.
