// THE VERGE — GAMING
Wolverine on the PS5 made me care about Marvel’s mutant for the first time
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Spider-Man developer Insomniac’s new game has delightfully gory claw-based combat, but its real hook is Logan.
Spider-Man developer Insomniac’s new game has delightfully gory claw-based combat, but its real hook is Logan.
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Going into my demo of Marvel’s Wolverine, I mainly wanted to try out the game’s very bloody combat. And it is delightfully bloody. But after two-ish hours of slashing and stabbing (and parrying!) enemies with Wolverine’s claws, I left surprised — despite no previous attachment to the character, I was deeply endeared to Logan himself.
The demo, which was held at Insomniac Games’ office in Burbank, California, started at the beginning of the game. In this story, Wolverine is rejoining the mutant task force Team X after a few years away in order to fight for his fellow mutants. He’s a reluctant hero with rocky relationships and little memory of his past — all good ways to onboard a newcomer without having to do a straight-up Wolverine origin story.
As Logan relearned how to be Wolverine, I was learning how to be him for the first time. Combat started out a little clunky for me as a result. It’s all about chaining attacks and kills to build the Rage meter, which gives you access to stronger and more devastating attacks to end combos with, all while dodging ranged attacks and parrying melee ones. It was a lot to keep track of amid showers of blood from eviscerated enemies. I found myself repeatedly trying to dodge melee attacks rather than parry them, which led to more than a few deaths as I learned the ropes.