Marvel's Wolverine, the upcoming PS5 game from Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games, has drawn some online criticism for being a linear, cinematic action title rather than an open-world game in the mould of Insomniac's Spider-Man series. Game director Mike Daly has defended the approach in an interview with Polygon, explaining that every design decision was driven by what suited the character of Wolverine rather than by matching player expectations for a modern AAA release.

Daly said the team looked to classic Wolverine comic stories, which show a character who roams widely rather than staying tied to one place, making a linear action-adventure structure a better fit than an open world. This philosophy also shaped the combat system, which pushes players through three escalating "rage" tiers, from scrappy survival instincts to full aggression, designed to feel authentically like Wolverine rather than offering a generic checklist of features. The same reasoning informed the decision to set the story before the formation of the X-Men, keeping the focus tightly on Wolverine himself.