This September is jam-packed with new games, and Marvel’s Wolverine is the biggest of the bunch. Insomniac’s PS5-exclusive superhero game looks to deliver a brutal take on Wolverine that’s suitably faithful to the character. Given Insomniac’s sterling track record (which includes Marvel’s Spider-Man and Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart), it should be riding your typical big-budget hype train right now ahead of the game’s Sept. 15 release date. So why are so many people so angry about it right now?
Over the past few weeks, social media has become a hotbed of hostility for Wolverine. Simmering rage boiled over after previews for the game dropped and revealed more about the action-adventure game. Some players weren’t thrilled with this early look at gameplay and have been posting up a storm across platforms as a result. The backlash has gotten so bad that marketing director James Stevenson referred to it as a “relentless onslaught that I cannot believe is good for anyone’s mental health nor representative” in a post on X.
Is it simply a case of gamers not liking what they’re seeing? While that very well may be part of it, Wolverine also finds itself at the intersection of various internet discourses that make it hard to see reality clearly. It’s a social media headache that should serve as a reminder that you should always be wary about what algorithms are serving you.
The backlash kicked off last week when hands-on previews of Marvel’s Wolverine dropped ahead of its upcoming release date. Those previews showed that Insomniac’s latest is a more straightforward action-adventure game than its open-world Spider-Man games. Compared to the open-world grandeur of those games, Marvel’s Wolverine is fairly linear and focused on delivering a cinematic experience. Some of the choices Insomniac made to achieve that have been lambasted based on new footage. Two moments in particular have been common targets: a chase scene where an enemy has a red trail, and a boss fight against a giant Sentinel that has been compared to 2007’s Ben 10: Protector of Earth.
That reaction should be straightforward enough, at least in a civilized society. Wolverine looks to be following the playbook set by series like Uncharted and God of War, delivering a style of big-budget game that some players have lost their appetite for. Polygon’s own Oli Welsh delivered a down-the-middle take on it in his own hands-on preview, praising its lean feel but flagging its lack of depth as a potential problem in the full game. Case closed… right?
It’s a little more complicated than that. For starters, Insomniac has a long history of being used as a punching bag for gamers. In 2018, it found itself at the center of “Puddlegate,” one of the weirdest gaming controversies I’ve ever experienced. That sprung up after a player accused Insomniac of downgrading the graphics in Marvel’s Spider-Man ahead of launch, a claim entirely based on the developer shrinking some puddles between builds of the game. Then in 2023, Insomniac was the victim of a cyberattack, which resulted in early footage of Wolverine being leaked and subsequently dissected. Whether it makes logical sense or not, the studio has had a target on its back for eight years.
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