Superhero games have been stuck in an open-world arms race for over a decade now. Bigger maps. More collectibles. More side missions. More icons on the screen until the actual hero starts feeling like an afterthought.

Insomniac basically perfected that formula with Spider-Man. Swinging through Manhattan was incredible, and all that freedom fit Peter Parker like a glove.

But Wolverine was never supposed to be Spider-Man with claws.

That distinction matters more than people realize.

The game launches September 15, and the reviews are already out. The reception is mostly good, but not unanimous. Critics have praised the linear structure, brutal combat, and character work but a lot of them are also calling the fighting repetitive and the exploration too limited.

Which is weird, because that exact tension is what makes Wolverine interesting in the first place.

Insomniac doesn't need to prove it can build another massive superhero sandbox. It needs to prove that a superhero game can be better when it knows what not to include.

The Claws Problem

Turning Wolverine into a modern action game is harder than it looks.

When Spider-Man hits someone, there are limits. Peter can punch, kick, web guys to walls, throw stuff around, but his whole thing is holding back.

Logan doesn't have that luxury.

His weapons are claws. His healing factor means he can take punishment that would kill anybody else. And his history is full of moments where violence isn't just something he runs into — it's something he was built to deliver.

So his combat can't just be a different set of animations bolted onto a health bar. It has to feel physical. It has to feel dangerous. And it has to feel like Wolverine.

Insomniac clearly leaned into that. Reviewers keep bringing up how graphic the violence is and how aggressive the close-range combat feels, apparently it's one of the studio's most brutal games yet.

But brutality alone isn't enough. If every fight turns into the same sequence of button presses, the blood starts feeling like decoration.

And that's already showing up in reviews. The combat looks amazing, but some critics say it gets repetitive compared to the creative freedom of the Spider-Man games.

That's the real challenge. Wolverine doesn't just need violent combat. He needs combat where the violence actually means something.

Why Linearity Might Actually Be the Right Call

This is where the game gets interesting.

It doesn't try to recreate the giant open-world structure of Spider-Man. It goes for something much tighter and more linear.

And honestly? That might be exactly what Wolverine needed.

Open worlds make sense for characters defined by movement. Spider-Man needs a city because the city is the fantasy. Wolverine doesn't. Logan is a hunter. A tracker. A soldier. An animalistic fighter who's usually more interesting when he's trapped somewhere than when he's got a whole city to roam.

A tighter structure lets Insomniac control the pace. It can put Logan in a dark corridor and make you wonder what's waiting around the corner. It can build a whole encounter around one enemy instead of filling a map with twenty identical activities. It can make a fight feel like an event instead of another checkbox.

The Verge praised the game for going back to straightforward, linear action — while other reviews knocked that same structure for feeling restrictive or dated.

That disagreement says a lot. The same design choice can feel like a breath of fresh air or a step backward, depending on what you want from a superhero game.

Maybe that's the point.

The Man Underneath the Adamantium

It's easy to get distracted by the claws. They're the obvious selling point.

But Wolverine has never been interesting just because he can tear people apart. He's interesting because he hates what violence has made him.

He's a weapon who wants to be a man. Someone carrying decades of trauma inside a body that refuses to die.

That's a very different kind of superhero story.

Peter Parker's greatest strength is his ability to keep moving forward no matter what. Logan's problem is that he can't escape what's behind him. His memories. His past. The people who used him. The people he hurt. The person he became.

That's where Insomniac has a real shot.

Reviews have already pointed to Logan's characterization and emotional side as some of the strongest parts of the game, even when the gameplay gets criticism.

Which matters, because Wolverine doesn't need to be charming. He needs to be complicated. The violence should feel like something Logan carries, not just something the player gets to enjoy.

The Spider-Man Problem

There's an unavoidable comparison here, and it's a dangerous one.

Insomniac's Spider-Man games were massive, and that creates expectations. Players know what this studio can do with a giant city. They know how good traversal feels. They know how polished the combat can be.

So of course some people are going to look at Wolverine and ask why it doesn't give them the same freedom.

But copying Spider-Man would've been the bigger mistake.

Picture it, same map structure. Random crimes. Collectibles. Enemy bases. Dozens of side activities. A city full of distractions.

At some point, Logan stops feeling like Wolverine and starts feeling like another video game avatar hopping from one objective marker to the next.

He deserves better than that.

The Real Benchmark

Wolverine doesn't need to be the next Spider-Man 2. It needs to be the first great Wolverine game. That's a way more interesting bar to clear.

And from the early reception, Insomniac got a lot of the important stuff right. Strong sense of who Logan is. A more focused structure. Combat that embraces the brutality people expect. But the criticism about repetitive fighting and limited exploration shows that committing to a narrower vision comes with its own risks.

Which is fine. Not every superhero game needs to be a theme park. Sometimes the better experience is the one that knows when to stop.

Let Wolverine Be Wolverine

The superhero genre doesn't need another game trying to do everything. It needs games that understand their characters well enough to do one thing exceptionally well.

Spider-Man should make you feel the freedom of swinging through a city. Wolverine should make you feel the weight of every fight.

The fear of getting surrounded. The relief of healing through damage. The exhaustion of getting pulled back into violence over and over. The tragedy of being a man who can survive almost anything except his own past.

Wolverine drops September 15 with a lot to prove. Not because Insomniac needs another hit. Not because Marvel needs another successful game.

But because Wolverine has been one of Marvel's most complicated characters for decades. He deserves a game that gets that.

And if Insomniac can make players feel the rage, pain, and weight behind those claws, it won't need another open-world masterpiece.

It'll have something better, a Wolverine game that could only have been made for Wolverine.