// KOTAKU — GAMING
Marvel’s Wolverine Has Already Been Consumed By A Debate About ‘Fart Gas’ And It’s Not Even Out Yet
If you had asked me a week ago what I thought we’d be talking about on the day that reviews dropped for Marvel’s Wolverine, I might have said the bloody violence, or its take on the X-Men universe, or the lack of open-world exploration. I certainly would not have guessed “fart gas.” But it turns out that fart gas gets to the heart of what has dominated the discussion ahead of the PlayStation 5 exclusive’s launch.
Wolverine’s reviews have been mixed at best, with many, including Kotaku‘s own, taking issue with how on-rails parts of the game feel and how repetitive its combat can become. Some of the critiques gesture at a broader frustration with Sony’s latest prestige blockbuster–that it borrows too much from dated playbooks and treats players with kid gloves rather than trusting them to rise to the occasion and adapt to its unique challenges or quirks.
This sentiment propelled a clip from YouTuber Ralph “Skill Up” Panebianco’s in-depth review of Insomniac Games’ latest comic book action-adventure into arguably one of the most talked-about clips. It shows a brief snippet of Wolverine, with Logan running through snow-covered woods. It looks innocuous enough at first, but Skill Up goes on to detail at length all the ways that Wolverine overbearingly holds players’ hands and fights to keep them from wandering off course in narrowly designed corridor levels for even a second.
this bit from skill up's review of wolverine knocked me on my ass, it feels like something that wouldve come out of one of those focus m parody videos but its in a real triple A game
— jill nye the science dyke (@gizmouse.bsky.social) 2026-09-10T15:44:55.562Z
It’s not the only section of the game he criticizes for these flaws. Other zones also include multiple critical path markers on top of wrinkles already built into the underlying environment design that tell players where to go. It all seems aimed at propelling the player through what can’t help but look like a pretty on-rails, dumbed-down experience.
At one point, Skill Up calls out four layers of signposting. The first is a sent line trailing Jean Grey, which The Washington Post‘s Gene Park has taken to calling “fart gas.” On top of that is an individual objective marker icon that occasionally pops up to tell players where they’re supposed to be. Then there’s a purple set of magical roots that pop up to take the player to a collectible just a few feet off the beaten path.
Finally, there’s the white paint and environmental lights that draw players’ eyes to where they’re supposed to go next. Add on top of all that the constant barks from Wolverine about needing to find Jean and you have a recipe for what seems like a pretty patronizing transition between set pieces and combat arenas.
Okay… So you can turn off most of these HUD and accessibility options Skill Up is criticizing in his Wolverine Review.
Insomniac’s official settings confirm:Mission waypoint icons: On / R3 Hint / Off → you can completely disable them.Navigation Assist: the directional… pic.twitter.com/oehxfpkT48