Marvel’s Wolverine opens on a feral, memory-wiped Logan, and that flashback is where PlayStation Blog’s two-hour hands-on session began. Kristen Zitani, manager of Content Communications at Sony Interactive Entertainment, played through the game’s opening mission in the wilds of Telambang before jumping ahead to a boss fight and a stretch of Madripoor’s Lowtown. It’s the most detailed look at Insomniac’s September 15 release so far, arriving a month out from launch.
It also happens to be the game we put at the top of our most anticipated games of 2026, and part of the reason for that was what came before it. Several of us were disappointed by how safe and familiar Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 felt, and Wolverine looked like the swing in the other direction, with a debut trailer that confirmed a violent tone suited to the character. Wrapping the studio behind the Spider-Man games and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart in a Wolverine costume is a premise we called nothing short of amazing at the time.
That opening mission reunites Wolverine with Team X, the mutant task force Nathaniel Essex assembled to protect mutants, and his earlier departure from the group is still a sore spot for teammates Mystique and Sabretooth. The job takes them into the facility of anti-mutant industrialist Bolivar Trask, who has been quietly spending his fortune abducting, studying, and disposing of mutants in the name of human superiority. Wolverine fights through Reaver enemies and runs into Omega Red before freeing Essex, the man who found him in that feral state years earlier.
Combat is where Zitani spent most of her attention, and the standout is how Wolverine closes distance by launching himself across a room at enemies rather than simply attacking them. A parry and barrage covers the basics, but Special Techniques can be unlocked, upgraded, and mapped to the directional buttons, with Tornado Spin clearing a surrounding group and Knee Breaker interrupting incoming attacks. Adaptations handle the longer-term upgrades to things like health and the rage meter. We said back in December that combat looked like it would feel visceral and brutal, and the mechanics described here are built to deliver exactly that.
The rage meter itself climbs through three tiers as combos land, and each one changes how Logan fights. Tier 2 makes combos hit harder and unlocks Last Stand, which spends rage to heal him if he goes down. Tier 3 is the real shift, adding brutal critical strikes and pulling his vision inward while his breathing turns primal, and Zitani describes takedowns built around ripping a katana or bow out of a member of The Hand’s hands and turning it back on them.
Not every encounter is a brawl, though. Enhanced Senses let Wolverine track and stealthily take down enemies, and Trask’s Ability Inhibitors shut off mutant powers entirely, forcing him to fight through the pain without healing until the devices are destroyed. The session’s late highlight was a Sentinel Prototype fight that Trask built to detect and destroy mutants, which called for dodging and parrying while working alongside Mystique and Sabretooth.
Madripoor’s Lowtown handles the quieter side of things, with the Princess Bar serving as a hub run by Tyger. Wolverine meets newly acquired ally Jean Grey and the mutant teens she’s been protecting, and it’s with her that he admits his anger frightens him. Mystique drops the shapeshifting to play a round of Never Have I Ever, while Sabretooth spends the opening hours calling him a runt.
Exploration is worth the detour, with outfits and claw types ranging from a plain undershirt and jeans to a Weapon X helmeted look, plus hidden crates of upgrade materials and collectible whisky bottles. Enhanced Senses work outside combat too, picking up conversations or trailing a teammate’s scent, and rooms hide easter eggs like Mystique’s wedding photos and an IOU scrawled on an ace of spades by one Remy LeBeau. There are also Nightmare Doors scattered around that pull Logan into a dreamlike cabin for timed Nightmare Trials, reimagining locations from the game as vertical speed runs that unlock forgotten memories from his past.
Marvel’s Wolverine launches September 15 exclusively on PlayStation 5. You can read the full hands-on report at PlayStation Blog.
