Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Insomniac’s last major title, sold 2.5 million copies on launch day. Wolverine reportedly had a $300 million budget and a development cycle of at least five years, given it was first announced in September 2021 (though actor Liam J. McIntyre hinted it may have been longer).

However, the reception probably isn’t what Sony expected. Marvel’s Wolverine currently has a 75 Metascore based on 145 critical reviews, and has faced mixed reactions for its writing, excessive handholding despite an overtly linear structure, and more. We found the experience fun in its own right – check out our review here.

For its part, Insomniac has addressed criticisms surrounding the scent trails and audio indicators. A hotfix to turn off scent trails for Whisky Bottles, Nightmare Door roots and Material Crate audio clues went live several days after launch. This was followed by a patch that allows you to toggle story-centric scent trails by pressing R3. Whether it will receive any new features or content in the future remains unknown, so stay tuned for updates.

It’s currently the 11th best-selling game of 2026 to date, but more impressively, its full-game dollar sales were the highest for a Sony title in its launch month since Helldivers 2 in February 2024. While sales numbers have yet to be revealed, it may be performing far better than most think.

Of course, the chart is full of other new titles for September, including EA Sports FC 27 in second, followed by The Blood of Dawnwalker in fifth, WARDOGS in sixth, and Onimusha: Way of the Sword in seventh. Halloween: The Game somehow claimed eighth while Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve debuted in ninth.

Perhaps the least surprising news is NBA 2K27 is now 2026’s best-selling game to date in the US, beating Resident Evil Requiem. It’s somewhat expected since the basketball title debuted in third place last August based on early access sales alone. If that isn’t a testament to the craze behind it, we don’t know what is.

Pressing R3 will now bring them up to guide you to the next objective (wherever they may appear, of course). Technically, it doesn’t remove the scent trails so much as turn them into what players believed should have been the case from the beginning: Optional, not mandatory guidance.

This follows the last hotfix that let you remove the Material Crate audio clues, the Nightmare Door roots, and the Whiskey Bottle scent trails completely. Before that, Insomniac Games released a hotfix to reduce the intensity of the scent trails and Audio Sense indicators to address criticism against the game’s excessive handholding.

Marvel’s Wolverine is available for PS5, and unlike its mainline Spider-Man titles, neither Insomniac nor PlayStation have announced sales figures yet. That doesn’t necessarily spell disaster, though. It’s estimated to have sold 1.9 million copies in three days and earned $130 million in revenue. While allegedly below that of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, it’s better than Saros and Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls.

This guide for Marvel’s Wolverine lists every Special Technique in Logan’s arsenal, and the best ones to rely upon.

Tornado Spin Special Technique

Level 2 Unlock

Cleave surrounding enemies with a high-damage, multi-hit spin attack. Hits build Rage.

Spin around for longer, slice through some defensive postures, and counter incoming assaults with the first upgrade. Extend range and damage, and break through any defense with the final upgrade.

This Special Technique will probably be your goto for the entire playthrough of the game, dishing out brutal damage to everything in range.

Knee Breaker Special Technique

Level 4 Unlock

Bash an enemy in the head to Stagger them. Interrupts all attacks.

Do more Stagger damage, and deploying it to interrupt specific attacks causes it to recharge faster, with the first upgrade. Enhance Stagger damage further, and even inflict it in an area-of-effect with the final upgrade.

Knee Breaker is a targeted Technique, and you may not use it as often, at least not until the third upgrade kicks in.

Relentless Special Technique

Level 7 Unlock

Focus your Healing Factor to recover Health faster for a limited duration.

Lengthen the duration of the Healing Factor with the first upgrade, and have it restore a chunk of health on impending death with the final upgrade.

There are other more preferable ways among Adaptations that allow you to stay alive, without having to waste an active Special Technique slot.

Spiral Strike Special Technique

Level 13 Unlock

Drill through enemies with a high-damage attack that can break out of being surrounded.

Use Spiral Strike a second time immediately with the first upgrade, and then a third consecutive time with the final upgrade.

Spiral Strike is the Special Technique of choice to get out of a tight situation when beset by enemies on all sides. As crowd control goes it does require some finesse to actually target it correctly, but at its worst it will still extricate you from the immediate crisis at claw.

Overwhelm Special Technique

Level 22 Unlock

Charge forward to tackle and mount an opponent.

Knock enemies back during charges, and potentially chain the Special Technique if you happen to kill the target with the first upgrade. Recharge Overwhelm quicker with its final upgrade.

As targeted crowd control attacks go, Overwhelm has some utility, doubly so once you get it to level two and synergize it properly for some chaining potential of this Special Technique.

Brutal Assault Special Technique

Level 25 Unlock

Dash to a target and deliver a vicious combo that breaks through all enemy defenses.

Effectively a targeted variation of the Tornado Spin Special Technique, Brutal Assault cracks right through defenses with even more strikes while building Rage after the first upgrade. The final upgrade deploys Hot Claws, causes damage in an area-of-effect, and recharges itself from any successful kills.

Those are all 6 Special Techniques available to Logan, and the ones most recommended to bind in Marvel’s Wolverine.

On the PlayStation Blog, Sony Interactive Entertainment graphics research and development principal engineer Daniel Craig noted how the “computational demands” made PSSR on PS5 “impossible.” By comparison, QSSR is more streamlined and “hand-tuned” for the same.

“While PSSR remains the gold standard on PS5 Pro, QSSR provides some notable improvements to both image detail and image stability on PS5.”

Insomniac Games head of technology Mike Fitzgerald expressed excitement for the tech, noting that it allows for “more pixel-level clarity and stability to our environments, bringing out extra detail amidst the busy streets of Madripoor, the dense alleyways of Shinjuku, and many other areas across Logan’s epic journey. It’s a perfect companion to the launch of Marvel’s Wolverine, and it brings a great taste of the PS5 Pro experience to our players on PS5.”

Sucker Punch Productions lead rendering engineer Jasmin Patry had similar praise, noting that it allows Yōtei players to “experience the world we’ve created with even more clarity and detail. QSSR excels at resolving the fine details in our characters and environments and does so with a level of temporal stability that hasn’t been possible on the PS5 console until now.”

Two comparison videos are available for Marvel’s Wolverine and Ghost of Yōtei, and on closer inspection, QSSR certainly appears to offer an advantage in image quality. It should help those who prefer to play in Performance Mode on both consoles for 60 FPS. How quickly other PlayStation Studios – and, for that matter, third-party developers – will adapt it remains to be seen.

This new solution is part of Project Amethyst, PlayStation’s collaboration with AMD, which also brought us Upgraded PSSR or PSSR 2.0. You can learn more about it here.

Unfortunately, there’s a catch: “Story-critical Senses will still appear in the world.” There’s no word on whether the developer plans to provide a toggle for this anytime soon. But if you hate how the UI guides you to the next plot development, regardless of frequency, you might want to wait a little longer for the next update.

For those who couldn’t be bothered with scent trails, Update 1.001.006 brings several crash fixes and addresses a bug in “The One That Got Away” mission, where one could get stuck after sliding down the tree. Misaligned claws in Photo Mode, objects occasionally turning white after long play sessions, and that bizarre bathroom sign resulting from a UV mapping bug – all of these have also been addressed.

Marvel’s Wolverine is out now on PS5, and though we had plenty to praise in our review, the critical consensus is far from Insomniac’s best. Regardless, it seems to have sold well enough, with a reported 1.9 million sales in its first few days.

Update 1.001.006

• Adds new on/off Senses toggles for*:
  – Whisky Bottle Scent Trails
  – Material Crate Audio Clues
  – Nightmare Door Roots
• Addresses several crashes identified through crash logs & the community
• Fixes an issue where players could become stuck while sliding down tree in the “The One That Got Away” mission
• Addresses issues with misaligned claws in Photo Mode
• Fixes rare issue where objects may turn white after extended play sessions
• Fixes overlapping bathroom sign in the casino caused by a UV mapping issue

*Story-critical Senses will still appear in the world.

Discussing the gratuitous violence and gore in Marvel’s Wolverine, courtesy of Logan’s combat style that involves his claws and healing factor, Wyser said that the team had the aim of making people cringe with how Logan dismantles his enemies. “As we started working on combat, I said to our animation team, ‘I want us to make the audience cringe. You could punch in the face, but it’s a little bit more cringeworthy if you slice the throat and rip out part of the throat.’”

Hathaway spoke about how, even in the early builds of the game that didn’t even have any levels, Insomniac was able to successfully tap into the fantasy of taking on the role of Wolverine. “It’s this moment a lot of us had growing up where we always wanted to be Wolverine. We wanted the claws to pop out of our hands. We wanted that power.”

Showing all of this violence wasn’t an easy task for the animators. As Wyser explains, to include things like “limbing” – a technical term for the in-game dismemberment – animators had to work with the character team to ensure that the limbs being cut off looked clean. The visual effects team also had to be brought in to make sure that the amount of blood or electricity that comes from the dismemberment wound is appropriate.

Smith wraps up the video by talking about how Marvel’s Wolverine is “a love letter to the fans. The way that our artists were able to represent mutant powers, it looks like something out of a movie, but it’s happening in real time. It’s running in frame. It’s incredible.” Hathaway adds: “You can really feel how much care and love has been put into this game.”

Marvel’s Wolverine was released exclusively on PS5 earlier this month, and has gone on to be incredibly successful. A report has indicated that it has already taken up the third-place spot in the best-selling games of the year list in the UK, coming in behind Resident Evil Requiem and 007 First Light. Another report has claimed that it has sold nearly 2 million copies in the first three days of its release, with one million sales being attributed to pre-orders for the digital version before the game even came out.

For more details, take a look at our review, where we gave it a score of 10 out of 10 thanks to its brutal and satisfying combat, excellent story and pacing, spectacular boss fights, and strong progression systems. Our only complaints were that it suffers from minor bugs and that its stealth gameplay systems feel quite underwhelming.

Thus, many publishers and developers enter panic mode, shifting their releases hither and yon, focusing on three months – August, September and October. That didn’t even count those still planning to launch this year but hadn’t officially announced a release date, like Fable and Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis. Of course, we all know what happened next. Delays to next year, further shifts within these months – like Onimusha: Way of the Sword launching earlier in September or Phantom Blade Zero being delayed to late October. Maybe that was always the plan, or perhaps they came to their senses and realized that overloading any of these dates would be a recipe for disaster.

That doesn’t necessarily mean players can afford every single release within a span of weeks. And yet, even with all those warnings about “too much of something,” we still found ourselves looking forward to the deluge. Because if the industry, which is only shipping more and more titles with each passing year, has proven anything, it’s that there can’t be too many video games.

However, the past several weeks have stood out for a different reason: Delivering one of the best stretches of releases in years. While I wouldn’t go as far as calling August or September objectively the best on their own, the quality, depth and variety of these releases have also stood out above all.

In the latter half of August alone, we had The Sinking City 2, a follow-up to Frogwares’ cult-classic investigative horror but dabbling more in survival and shooting than before. Even with mixed opinions on this shift, players and critics found the overall package good and a worthy addition to the admittedly lackluster catalogue of fun games. This was followed by the Souls-like Mortal Shell 2, which also shifted away from its predecessor by introducing an open world, albeit one that eschewed scale for denser environments that rewarded exploration.

Then there was Metal Gear Solid: Master Collection Vol. 2, and quite frankly, what else needs to be said about the availability of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots on modern consoles? It may not seem like that much of a big deal, but this game remained trapped on the PS3 for almost two decades. That you can now experience the complete story of Big Boss and Solid Snake on modern platforms, that too with visual improvements depending on the title, is nothing short of fantastic.

Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy was next. A great prequel and one that delivered a compelling narrative with surprisingly competent combat and exploration, so it’s a shame it doesn’t seem to have the sales charts on fire, especially after the previous two games’ momentum.

Star Wars: Zero Company fared better, quickly receiving critical praise and standing out with its player numbers on Steam. Even with the XCOM legacy to live up to – not to mention appeasing hardcore fans of The Clone Wars era – Bit Reactor pulled it off, delivering a strong narrative, meaningful characters, and some fun tactical turn-based action that somehow managed to feel fresh.

Of course, by this point, it was clear that many players were looking forward to the two heaviest hitters to kick off September – Onimusha: Way of the Sword and The Blood of Dawnwalker. Both were successful in their own right, having sold a million copies each shortly after launch, even if the only thing they really share in common is swords.

You would think the momentum would slow at some point, especially with Marvel’s Wolverine launching mid-September. But then Valheim exited early access and, surprisingly, no one, it’s still one of the best survival crafting experiences out there. Of course, Logan’s extended soliloquy followed less than a week later, and despite some flaws, it seems to have landed pretty well among PS5 players, with a 4.8 out of 5-star score on the PlayStation Store based on around 29,000 ratings.

But even with all these releases out, there was yet another surprise: Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter. As a remake of my favorite entry in the series, and one of the finest RPGs of all time, it’s currently the highest-rated new title of 2026 on both Opencritic and Metacritic. And if a sweeping fantasy epic like this isn’t enough, there’s also Control Resonant, Remedy’s fantastic action RPG that builds on everything from the original while forging ahead in exciting new directions. Silent Hill: Townfall is the first full-length title in the series to offer a first-person perspective, and has been intriguing enough for horror fans.

And even if we’re not talking about new entries, older titles like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 received a venerable shot in the arm with its 2.0 update and Cost of Hope. Many probably expected it to come and go, but it currently has an 86 OpenCritic score – not bad for an expansion, and even higher than some full games we’ve mentioned.

Now, I’m not saying that there haven’t been some disappointments – Halloween: The Game and Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2 are a few examples that come to mind. But the past several weeks have reinforced a trend that’s really defined the year as a whole: Variety is truly the spice of life, even if the selection is overwhelming. After all, if you go further back into August, there are some fantastic experiences like Big Walk and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls to dive into (though maybe not on PC for the latter). Then you had unorthodox efforts like Iron Nest, which simulates operating a massive gun turret all on your lonesome, or ReStory: Chill Electronics Repairs, which, as the name indicates, has you repairing older appliances. Both are rated “Overwhelmingly Positive” on Steam currently.

And this won’t stop any time soon. Nivalis Nights is a cyberpunk restaurant management title, but also lets you seamlessly explore its city and chat up dozens of fully voiced NPCs. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt Remastered may as well be considered a new release with the sheer number of changes and overhauls, and that’s not even accounting for Ace Combat 8, Gears of War: E-Day, Star Wars: Galactic Racer, Order of the Sinking Star, and Dragon’s Dogma 2: Dark Arisen – all as different as can be.

Maybe some of them are just good rather than overwhelmingly excellent. Maybe we’ll forget about them when Grand Theft Auto 6 lands and the outside world as we know it ceases to exist for however many weeks. Regardless, 2026 is a year where there’s no shortage of tastes accounted for; where the variety of releases has matched the quality surprisingly well; and a reminder that your backlog isn’t getting any smaller anytime soon.

Even if there was sheer trepidation at the number of games to look forward to in such a short space, the past weeks have proven that there too much of a good thing may not be all that bad. And as much as there’s fear about triple-A titles dumbing things down to attract the widest audience, a boatload of other releases prove just how engaging the medium can be, regardless of budget.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

This guide for Marvel’s Wolverine is a complete listing of every Suit and set of Claws available to Logan, whether toggling the cowl is possible, whether the Claws are locked in to the Suit, and finally the criteria for unlocking everything.

ALL SUITS AND CLAWS

The majority of the Suits must be crafted using a variable amount of Materials. These are found in Material Crates secreted around the semi-open world over the course of missions. Be sure to unlock the Crate Finder Adaptation early on, in order to facilitate easy discovery of collectibles. Something in the region of ~3,500 Materials will be required in total, in order to craft every Suit that requires them.

Every couple of Suits unlocked beyond the first three, adds a bonus percentage to Logan’s health. By eight Suits unlocked, you will have a 150% health pool, and a final total of 200% health once you have 20 Suits in your possession.

Those are all the Suits and Claws to be discovered and how to unlock them in Marvel’s Wolverine.

However, we believe that’s a sentiment that’s understandable only if you haven’t dived into the experience yet and are perhaps drawing impressions from the online discourse around it. It’s a title that draws you in from its very opening, and can have you so immersed in the experience that the hours can go by pretty quickly before you realize your hands have your controllers in a death grip.

But what is it about Marvel’s Wolverine that makes it so addictive? Why is Insomniac’s version of the character so hard to walk away from? We’re here to tell you all about it, claws out and a challenging roar at the ready. Let’s go!

Feral Fighting

If you guessed that the combat is a part of the game’s allure, give yourself a pat on the back. It’s the star of the show and is the connecting thread between Logan the man and Wolverine the mask. Wolverine doesn’t simply have a combat system; instead, it’s a combat system that happens to have a great, Logan-focused story around it.

Get to the credits, and it’s easy to feel like the entire game was designed around putting as many enemies between Logan and his objectives, and letting him cut loose with utter disdain for his foes. The stakes are too high for either side to show any hint of mercy, and the combat is suitably aggressive, brutal, and often so evocative of Logan’s primal ferocity that it just slaps.

You see it in the way Logan closes impossible distances in a single bound, his claws at the ready as he prepares to sink them into a Reaver who just took a shot at him. It’s in the way your parries are designed to fuel an aggressive approach, allowing Logan to keep attacking enemies off-balance while accruing enough Rage to bring them down.

Of course, Logan’s well-documented driving force becomes a central mechanic to the combat, and it’s a design choice that has worked very well to make Logan a brawler who feels very unique in the hands. Having to work with it during combat gives each fight a sort of escalating rhythm that is then rewarded by moves like Logan’s Barrage, which makes getting up close and personal feel like an extension of the man’s taste for melee combat.

But that connection between the character and the combat is more than just the anger that’s always bubbling on the surface. It’s in the way Logan moves, the knowledge that his adamantium skeleton lets him tank a few hits being evident in the way he throws himself into enemy fire.

He frequently gets enough of the monster he so diligently controls out of its cage to take on rapidly escalating threats, tearing through groups and even letting his objective get away from him to take on a bunch of Reavers who shoot at him, a scene that’s been around since the early gameplay showcase.

Yes, his senses are certainly enough for him to get back on the scent, but his reactive nature and the way it makes him act is just a part of his personality in Marvel’s Wolverine, rather than a story or gameplay beat that’s used just to pad out its runtime. It’s an aspect of the game that’s received critical praise, while even reviews that weren’t fully on board with the experience praised how visceral the combat could feel when you dive in.

However, combat’s only one part of the experience, and we think Wolverine has been intelligent about how it has crafted everything else to feed into the combat system, just as Logan’s rage drives him to keep pushing forward even in the direst of circumstances.

Frenetic Pacing

It’s a testament to how well Marvel’s Wolverine is paced that we ended up well into the game’s second act before we ended our first session of playing it. The pace is set pretty early on in the story, and the blood flows enough to make a river that carries the narrative along at a breakneck speed.

There’s no giant map with a bunch of distractions calling you away to cross things off yet another checklist. There’s just you, Logan, and whatever fight or set piece the story has lined up for you next, all backed up by some excellent presentation and great visual work to sell the spectacle of it all.

Wolverine has been streamlined in a way that makes its linear story a rollercoaster that you’re going to find refreshing if you’ve been experiencing any form of open-world fatigue. It’s been criticized for being too linear for some tastes (we loved it!), but it’s that very facet of the experience that makes it a solid game.

That’s also created the scope for a level of polish that helps the cutscenes and gameplay contribute equally to the feeling that we’re actually playing Logan, and not just a generic sprite with claws and an adamantium skeleton slapped on to it. We’ve talked about how he moves, but it’s equally important to consider how his enemies react to the onslaughts he unleashes upon them.

In both cutscenes and actual gameplay, enemies have visible reactions to the horrors that Logan inflicts on them in the course of a fight. Hack off a Reaver’s limb, and they’re going to stop and stare at the stump in utter horror before you end their misery with a quick and decisive blow. Their faces scrunch up in agony once Logan manages to get the drop on them, and the blood that spatters Logan and the surrounding area looks all too real when you’re squeamish at the sight of it.

Wolverine blends its story and combat system into a game where the visual feedback you’re given at all times helps make the entire thing so darn immersive it’s so easy to get into a flow state and watch the spectacle of your take on Logan unfold on your screens. The many boss fights that punctuate the journey are where things come together and present a game that’s been designed to do what Logan does best.

Take Omega Red, for instance, since he’s probably already dead at your hands if you’ve been playing the game with some form of self-discipline. He’s imposing, and already presented as being formidable enough to take Sabertooth out of the equation when you first square off against him.

And yet, the actual fight doesn’t make you hold back, but instead use Logan’s skills as intelligently as you can to ensure that you overwhelm the smug villain and take him out of the equation with deadly force. That’s something that happens in most of the boss fights you take on, and each one is going to make you stop to catch your breath; the return to reality is rather jarring after all of the simulated explosions, curses, and roars that just had you fully engaged moments ago.

You’ve probably already guessed there’s a fight with Sabertooth coming given how snarky he’s been so far, and you’re right. That one is a great showcase of how you’re expected to take advantage of mechanics other than dodges and parries. They can get you there, but at the increased risk of leaving Logan vulnerable to damage from a frankly overwhelming barrage of attacks, befitting Victor and the resentment he feels towards his Wolverine.

It’s a fight where the story and combat collide, making for a very insightful peek into Logan and Victor’s library while setting up an interesting arc for the two men in the rest of the story and beyond. There’s no better showcase of how the combat, story, and presentation bring out the feral side of its cast, and showcase fights that make use of it with a visual and design language that leans into it.

It’s evident in how Sabertooth gives in to his animalistic side, choosing to bound and leap on all fours, unleashing a feral side that he barely kept contained when Essex was an ally. He’s vicious, cunning, and a predator who is Logan’s equal, and the game isn’t afraid to present the rivalry between the two men in a manner that’s raw and considerate of their often differing points of view.

Marvel’s Wolverine brings so many moments like this to the table. But how does it sustain that momentum over the time it takes you to roll the credits on it?

Pathed Progress

We’ve seen a few critics argue that the game’s combat lacks depth and becomes repetitive, but we don’t entirely agree with that assessment. A steady stream of skills and upgrades is definitely part of what makes Wolverine so addictive to us, and while Logan may not have the sheer mechanical variety of some other superheroes, that feels entirely appropriate for the character. This is Logan we’re talking about, after all.

He doesn’t need fancy moves or gadgets. He’s a feral fighter who’s more than happy to dive into battle with his healing factor and bone claws, with the adamantium skeleton simply being a bonus to an already capable and seasoned warrior. Logan’s as old-school as they come, his violent life stripping away a need for comforts that others might cling to.

Why should a game that’s about him embody anything else? We’d argue that simplicity is a way to reinforce everything you get to use, and then let you get creative about unleashing them in the heat of battle. Wolverine understands it’s asking you to do a set of similar things for several hours, and has ensured that doing those things is a lot of fun.

As an action game and one focused on Logan, it’s definitely among the best at what it does. Like Logan, not everyone may agree with what it does and how it does it. But that doesn’t make what it has tried to make of the character any less spectacular and addictively simple. It’s been judged on whether it does enough to evolve the superhero formula.

We say it doesn’t have to, and perhaps never intended to. Logan isn’t really a big-picture guy and prefers to take action as quickly as he’s allowed to. And Marvel’s Wolverine lets him loose to do just that, while the story it has wrapped up the action in takes care of his human side well enough.

It’s made playing Wolverine feel ridiculously satisfying, and that’s a detail that’s an enormous part of why it’s going to keep Logan’s legions of fans coming back for more. If they own a PlayStation, that is.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.