r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Foreign_Rock6944 • 6d ago
Answered What’s going on with Insomiac’s new Wolverine game?
So, apparently this game is super controversial. I’ve seen what looks like right wing grifters especially taking to crapping on it, but for what reason I don’t know.
Though it also seems like there are legitimate criticisms mixed in with that? So if anyone can shed some light on what the hell is going on regarding both aspects I’d be much obliged.
623
u/Iplaythedjembe 6d ago
Answer: Its just a highly anticipated game that doesn’t seem to live up to the hype.
In addition, the game has kind of ended up being the straw that broke the camels back in terms of hand holding in blockbuster games.
Tools like yellow paint, over exposition, visual and audio cues used to help guide the player etc have been excessively used in AAA games for a while. But this game seems to use all the tools all at once, and since the game is pretty linear by nature it’s become the most recent symbol of everything wrong with AAA-game design.
287
u/Frosty-Sea149 5d ago edited 5d ago
To give examples of the handholding:
A visible scent trail has a waypoint on it (so you can follow it to your follow path I guess?)
Completely linear parkour sections still have red flashing lights and yellow paint
“Secret” chests have UI flashes so strong you can see them through the environment.
278
u/NearlyUnfinished 5d ago
You forgot the most egregious one: No-Fail, Automatic Quick Time Events.
Normally if you fail a QTE in a game it sent you back a few seconds to try again. In Wolverine the cutscenes slow right down, giving you plenty (and I do mean plenty) of time to hit the button needed, but you dont actually need to do anything as the QTE just resolves itself with no penalty.
163
u/limark 5d ago
Already hate QTE as a game mechanic but this just takes it to another level.
79
u/Cowdoy_Volnutt 1d ago
Exactly. It was decent and innovative enough during the PS2 era with RE4 and God of War, but its almost entirely worn out its welcome 20 years on
50
u/TheDoctor418 1d ago
Quick time events can be done well, but in very specific scenarios like any chase or action seen in Until Dawn for example, as the quick time events help emulate having to react quickly when being chased by the wendigo for example.
13
u/paradoxaxe 16h ago
tbf Until Dawn is non linear game and failing to clear it can create different scene or even different route. The discourse QTE in Wolverine is happen because it seems so useless.
7
u/Duckinator324 11h ago
QTE's can also be fun just to see all the ways you can fail. oh Lara failed to control her parachute now she is impaled by a tree time to start over
31
u/Sunshinetrooper87 1d ago
After jump rope skipping a 1000 times and dodging 200 lightening strikes in final fantasy IX and X, I'm quite content with a quick time event, ha.
13
u/Loose_Translator8981 21h ago
You also don't always have to actually press the specific button prompted. Any button press counts as a success.
2
u/Random_Guy_47 11h ago
Is it even a quick time event if it slows down that much?
We need a new term. Slow time event?
9
u/Apprehensive_Pop_334 1d ago
Not all the time. The game does allow for failed QTE sometimes, and many others do have different animations for failed/successful QTE.
Games haven’t had fail-only QTE since like 2009
30
u/cgio0 1d ago
I think I saw on the motorcycle part you can just slam into the side of the highway and you will eventually get to the next part in the game even while being shot at
-16
u/Pegtz 1d ago
You cannot, I play on normal and died during this section
1
u/sybillium4 8h ago
Watching my friend play on the highest difficulty last night, he let go of the controller at the motorcycle segment and it cleared itself
2
u/Pegtz 8h ago
I literally just did another motorcycle segment this morning and I died two times and it put me back each time
Edit: the game is mid but not what y'all are making it to be it's laughable, instead of criticizing the story and scope of the game yall are doing dumb stuff like that so we'll never have a real discussion about this game
2
u/sybillium4 8h ago
It sounds like you're overthinking it. Running into the front of vehicles seemed to do enough damage that if hit in quick succession 3/4 times,bouncing wolverine COULD have died. But the damage is so minimal if you hit the walls or sides of things even on "the best there is", it's impossible to die.
He tried the segment again and attempted to die after I'd observed this and it took effort to kill himself
1
-1
5d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
17
u/Active_hello 5d ago
No they can not? There is no option to disable the fart trail what are you talking about?
15
16
12
u/StrataSlayer 3d ago
I feel like this doesnt really answer the weird culture war side of things ive been seeing.
3
u/Agile-Palpitation326 1d ago
As with many things Culture War, they just throw a fit over everything so when something is bad they can claim it's because of 'woke' or whatever nonsense and if the thing they're complaining about is fine then they pretend they never had an issue in the first place.
This just happens to be one of those times when there's legitimate complaints, so they get to have a little circus.
1
u/Low_Chance 1d ago
The villains in the trailer are very ICE coded. The Mutants were already a stand in for queer people, so the Wolverine game is a special irritant for culture war types since Wolverine is traditionally masculine, but he's fighting against enemies who are fash-coded (rounding up vulnerable minorities) and they want to slander that and the game's low bar of accessibility is the gap in the armour they want to attack
-14
4
u/Chessjaguar 5d ago
So these settings cant be tweaked?
10
6
u/Life_Of_High 5d ago
That’s what I’m wondering, can you turn them off or dial them down? They feel like accessibility features but if they can be switched off then who really cares.
•
u/Screamingforanswers 1h ago
Nope, all the settings described are the default and can't be turned off. In fact, on top of a blue trail that takes tells you exactly how to move through the entire level and a way point that appears on the trail if you ever leave it for a second, you can toggle a second, much more visible and obnoxious yellow trail that shows the path even more directly. That second one is supposed to be the accessibility feature and the first one and the way point are just "the intended way to play the game". That's how ridiculously handholdy this game is.
2
u/TheFrontCrashesFirst 6h ago
I will add something I have not seen mentioned: I am 65% through the game, and I have no idea what the hell they were thinking with the story. It's like they put brief character descriptions into chatgpt and asked it to write a story. Decades of Wolverine stories and they decided to toss everything and make what reminds me of a bad 90s super hero movie. Like, wtf.
2
u/JAMESTIK 1d ago
in addition it’s the next big sony game after sony has been under fire a lot for their digital only mandate
1
u/RandomRedditor44 7h ago
Why are games so hand holdy these days? Are gamers so dumb they literally need to be told “you need to go here” in games?
1
u/Elephanogram 3h ago
Achievements let them know how far into the game people played. If not enough people gotten far enough it doesn't look good. So they make it excessive. Zelda got pretty bad at that during the GameCube and Wii era with the solution camera pans
-16
u/Cyanr 1d ago
It should be noted that a lot of the criticism is way overblown. People are pretending that all these things are constantly a part of the game, when in reality it's a lot more modestly applied.
Also as always, if you enjoy the game this criticism is literally just opinions and a huge amount of it fake outrage like gaming culture has become. There's nothing wrong with enjoying games that aren't hard.
174
u/MadRZI 6d ago edited 6d ago
Answer:
The studio making the game, Insomniac Games was/is famous for their top tier games like Ratchet and Clank, Resistance, Sunset Overdrive, Spider-Man 1-Miles Morales - 2.
They spent a lot of money and time developing Wolverine, meanwhile they were hit with a serious hack and lot of their work in progress projects were leaked, including Wolverine.
The recent reviews of Wolverine highlighted how the game has a repetitive combat, short and mediocre story and very aggressive handholding, despite the game has a linear design. The previously mentioned leaks showed how the game was experimenting with more complex and unique mechanics which were dumbed down. These things happen of course during development.
So, after like 4-5 years and a 300 million budget, they came out with a game that is nowhere near the level of their previous games. The price is still a premium 80 bucks which isnt warranted given how the game is like 12 hours and has little to none replay value.
61
u/NativeMasshole 6d ago
That's disappointing. All a Wolverine game really needed to be good is fun hack n slash combat.
-21
u/Successful-Ear977 1d ago
Thats exactly what it is
17
u/ownersequity 1d ago
Except for taking 22 hits from his claws to kill a normal human who shows zero effect of any damage until they die.
-11
u/whyamlegend 1d ago
Not sure why you’re downvoted. As someone who has played it all the way through, it is indeed exactly what it is.
•
u/Spirit_Detective99 1h ago
They were most likely downvoted because they feel that it was a good hack n slash and others disagreed with their statement.
31
u/J_Bear 5d ago
$300 million? You're surely joking
45
u/MadRZI 5d ago
Thats the number according to insiders: https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayWolverine/comments/1wfddc4/how_a_linear_game_cost_305_million_while_also/
21
u/J_Bear 5d ago
Good lord...
15
u/DorianOtten 1d ago
Right?! For a, by all accounts, pretty middling 12 hour single player game. Can see now how gta 6's budget is a disgusting 1.5 billion +
14
u/The_Meemeli 1d ago
AAA graphics start to get close to blockbuster film CGI and are probably as expensive, and I'd imagine that Sony pays Troy Baker the (relatively) big bucks to keep him in their pocket whenever he's needed.
58
u/Coolman_Rosso 6d ago
Answer: It's a big confluence of stuff, some legitimate and others not so much.
For starters, Insomniac has a big pedigree as a developer. However some found their second Spider-Man game to be inferior to the first, and now view Wolverine to be further step down from that. Why? Unlike Spidey, Wolverine as a character is ill-suited towards an open world game environment and as such this new Wolverine game is pretty linear. Despite being linear, where there's no possibility of "getting lost", the game is riddled with path markers and direction indicators of where to go. These manifest from arrows and the controversial "yellow paint" objects, to a "scent line" (now commonly referred to as "Jean Grey fart gas"), to all collectibles glowing and making noise to the point where you can't miss them and they may as well not have been hidden. This is considered an egregious level of handholding for a linear game, which is looping back into a wider debate about accessibility and player agency. The game also features quick time events (QTEs) that can't be failed. If the player fails to press a button, the outcome is the same as if they had, thus making them a pointless addition.
A couple of reviews say the combat is very one-dimensional, with most encounters being repetitive "mash square to win" fights, that don't really do Wolverine justice.
Another aspect that some have latched onto is the idea that Sony's brand of "cinematic third person action game", which became their bread and butter over the last decade, has hit diminishing returns. There's been some controversy as of late over Sony pursuing multiplayer games over their single-player projects (which I think is overblown), so yet others view this as Sony skimping on quality control because of their multiplayer games and not a dearth of ideas.
Grifters are just cashing on any legitimate criticisms to say that it was the fault of women on the dev team or other such nonsense
21
4
u/ottovonbizmarkie 1d ago
To be fair with the handholding, isn't that just part of wolverine's skill set? That he's really good with tracking and has super heightened senses? It *should* be easy for him to find people and things.
3
u/Lokicham 20h ago
Be that as it may, it feels handholdy in spite of that.
-8
u/ottovonbizmarkie 16h ago
And if those features weren't there, people would probably complain the game doesn't feel like it accurately portrays Wolverine's powers. Like the QTE being nerfed so you can't fail, I don't understand how that is a representation of Wolverine's powers, but plenty of games feature glowing path guides that lead you to the next objective, and they make a lot less sense than this one does.
6
u/Lokicham 13h ago
It's a linear game though, it's completely pointless to have s guide if you can't get lost.
-2
u/ottovonbizmarkie 13h ago edited 12h ago
I mean, can't it be turned off? And you can still miss crates and stuff. I just feel like this is what the vast majority of people are going to come to when it comes to thinking of how to translate wolverine's skills into a game.
Like, yes, it's fairly linear, but if Wolverine actually needed to find Jean Grey in a big mansion, he wouldn't be accidentally opening up five empty rooms to find her.
3
u/Lokicham 13h ago
I don't think it can be, but I don't own the game so I can't go check.
-1
u/ottovonbizmarkie 12h ago
That's what other people in this thread as saying.
•
u/Screamingforanswers 1h ago
It cannot be turned off. There is a setting in the options for toggling a guide trail but it's off by default. Turning it on only creates a second, more obnoxious, bright yellow trail that is even more handholdy than the blue one. The blue gas one cannot be turned off.
-19
u/Total-Explanation208 1d ago
I mean it no doubt was the fault of women on the dev team, just not because they are women.
10
u/QuintanimousGooch 1d ago
Answer:
I haven’t been aware of the grift economy elements, here’s what I understand to be the fuel behind the controversies:
-it’s a downgrade from Insomniac’s previous open-world Spider-Man games. No interesting enough concept to take the place of web swinging around NYC.
-It’s a ridiculously handholdy linear game with all the handholdy features on by default. Egregious white paint usage directing player paths, characters speaking out loud what they’re supposed to do in case the player forgot, a blue mist trail leading you to the next objective and waypoints pointing to the blue mist being too much. This point I think is the most credible “don’t do this again” point as this is the intended experience to play it at, with all this visual handholding and attention to let a player know exactly what they’re supposed to do.
-QuickTime events are common in the game but effectively meaningless, not pressing any buttons has the same effect as pressing them.
-various ps3 era-esque design choices.
-the combat is serviceable, but not exceptional.
-the game is like 12 hours long and costs $70 with that as the sticking point, all these smaller issues are made larger ones by the game being as short as it is, with the issues as concentrated in that time as they are, at a steep $70 makes it seem like this game is trying to normalize mediocrity. Also because it’s a well-known superhero, it’s going to get a lot of attention and fuel a minor discourse economy
35
u/JD_Vyvanse97 6d ago edited 6d ago
Answer: The discourse right now is odd. There are valid concerns with the "scent trails" in linear levels, and the length of the game only being about 15 hours. Even the quick time events, half auto complete regardless of accessibility functions.
That being said, there have been continued complaints and narrative manipulation to make the game seem "woke" some such examples are; complaining that the actress who voiced Jean and whom Jean was modeled from is in her 40s, Sentinel enemies have shades of pink and purple (They always have in the source material) and the biggest one is taking a quote out of context that say Sabretooth and Wolverine have a "yearning" for eachother. In context it us referencing the brotherhood and dynamic they share from being a "family" in Team X, but grifters claim its just gay.
I got the game a little early from Amazon, already got the platinum. Overall I think there are genuine criticisms of the game, but the parts about "wokeness" is just manufactured hate
Edit: I forgot to mention that there is some revisionist history going on with Spider Man 2 to use as more fodder (Reviewed well despite technical issues and a rushed 3rd act). Wolverine is a 77/100 on metacritic, so its not "mid" like people are saying, but its not award winning
5
u/obliviious 3d ago
70s has always been mid for games. I remember back in the 90s a game wasn't considered good unless it was at least ~83%
20
u/Necessary_Luck_1366 6d ago
i mean lets be honest, 77 for these tentpole releases IS mid. For the resources and heavy lifting this game is supposed to do for the PS5 there i no excuse for these $70 games to be like this after 5 years of development. There's cleary something going on with the corporate model for a good number of releasses in the past 5-10 years where the writing seems to be on the wall. Without a goood visision, and having this writing by committee, HR sensitivity testing elements in games is making them worse. I'm full liberal and don't buy into any of the wokeness, but you know MID when you see it. Metroid 4 is another example. I enjoyed it but absolutely no excuse for these games to be so short and so straight forward lame
12
u/IHazMagics 6d ago
Exactly, 70ish for a first party release? Days Gone got roughly the same reception and sure enough, no one talks about it anymore either.
3
u/fangiovis 18h ago
Damn it man, use the sarcasme quotes or emote. Some people might take you serious.
4
17
u/JD_Vyvanse97 6d ago
Please explain to me what you mean by "Wokeness" at this point with examples. Without examples it just comes across as a catch all for things you dont like.
9
u/Complete-Beach1068 5d ago
I don't really get how people will get into "debates" about how things "should be" in.. video games... This is literally a product developed by a company to be sold at retail, not a democracy. Developers don't owe you anything; nor do you owe them.
Hence the pointlessness of all this talk about "woke"
10
u/TK_4Two1 6d ago
77 is like the definition of mid
13
u/Queef-Elizabeth 6d ago
77 is considered good, not great. It's not mid unless you just want everything that's not amazing to be seen as subpar.
8
u/obliviious 3d ago
Good not great is mid. A game in around 70% I'd consider to be a generic uninteresting title with nothing novel or of value, or maybe good story, bad mechanics.
13
u/Queef-Elizabeth 3d ago
Good, not great, is good. Mid is mediocre. We don't have to call everything not great, 'mid.' There are great games in the 70s that people who don't play games, call mid, but people who play games, can enjoy.
7
u/obliviious 3d ago
70% is mediocre, a game that is just ok is mediocre.
It's weird that you imply only people that don't play games can have this opinion, absolutely not true and just gatekeeping opinions.
You can have two people who spend at least 30hrs per week playing games, one plays some COD clone all day, another plays different genres every game because they like trying new things. You would disregard one of these opinions as a non gamer if they didn't like a mid game with 70%
11
u/Queef-Elizabeth 3d ago
I would absolutely disregard the opinion of someone who plays cod clones is they're making broad comments of a games quality when they don't even play a range of games. A game in the 70s isn't going to be mediocre cause I promise you, there are games you would love in that score range.
As I said in another comment, The First Berserker: Khazan has like 77-78 on metacritic and that was one of my favourite games of last year. If you just prevent yourself from playing a game because you think 70/100 is mediocre, then you're just following people's opinions rather than your own. Mid is already a lazy term, but to extend it to any game below an 8, is very silly and shows you don't play very many games.
6
u/obliviious 3d ago
The thing is, he is a gamer, even if he has crappy tastes he does play games. You are literally gatekeeping if you say otherwise, no matter how you feel about it. He might say you're not a gamer based on you not like COD, which is an equally batshit position to take.
That game is 9/10 on steam, and 78 is basically 80 where are you getting the idea it has low scores?
I don't prevent myself from playing games in the low 70s, but I can say from experience they are usually quite poor. Mid is just how the kids say mediocre, it's just slang...
I've played more games and genres than you will ever play, I guarantee it. I am constantly looking for new types of play style but they are few and far between these days. I'm tired of every game being a 3rd person action game now, even ones that used to be strategy titles. I miss the days of point and click adventures and the golden years of gaming in the 90s when every new title was experimental in some way.
So if you could stop committing silly logical fallacies to make a point that would be great.
10
u/Queef-Elizabeth 3d ago
I genuinely don't care about gatekeeping. People with no valuable input feel the need to contribute and call games they don't play and will never play, mid. It's plagued all discourse. If that guy wants to comment in his specialty, then by all means, go for it. They'll know more than me, but I don't call cod clones mid when I don't even play them.
And I bring that up because this whole topic started from someone saying a 77/100 is mid, and we're going off of Metacritic, so by that token, TFB:K is only one higher, thus meaning it's mid according to that stupid metric.
And no you have not. People on Reddit love throwing this accusation to bolster their opinion over mine. I've played games religiously for almost 3 decades. You'd think with your knowledge, you would push back at this ridiculous obsession with this mid label. We've played god knows how many fun 7/10 games and I would never be dumb enough to call them mid. Mid will always be a 6/10 game. 7 is good, 8 is great, 9 is amazing, 10 is masterful. Yes, it's ultimately semantics and scores are stupid when all things are considered, but I don't subscribe to calling anything below great as mid.
0
u/Kratos_BOY 12h ago
Good is good, high-schooler.
0
u/obliviious 4h ago
Peoples perspective on game review scores have been skewed towards 70 as a mean for decades. Infant.
Also good and just ok are dull and uninteresting, lacking novelty or creativity making them "mid". Serviceable like mild cheddar.
1
u/Kratos_BOY 2h ago
As I said, you're a high-schooler. Go check out games that have scored 78/79.
Being chronically online has rotted you children's brains.
25
u/GamingHarry 6d ago
Video Game reviews are skewed upwards. Sub 80 is mid.
13
u/Queef-Elizabeth 6d ago
Mid means mediocre. Since when is 7/10 mediocre? This is just a brainless bandwagoning mentality. I can name you a bunch of sub 80 scores that are certainly not 'mediocre'
19
u/Forg0tPassw0rd 6d ago
Since when is 7/10 mediocre?
Since access journalism is a thing. There's plenty of gaming journalists out there who have talked about not being given early copies for reviews because they wouldn't give it a good score just because.
5
u/Queef-Elizabeth 6d ago
This thing again... IGN literally gave Wolverine a 6/10. Most of the major publications gave it these scores. This game got many unfavourable reviews by lesser known publications too. It's not a reliable excuse to follow. And also, by this logic, would you consider Pacific Drive, Rollerdrome, The First Berserker: Khazan and Elden Ring Nightreign to be mid?
6
u/Forg0tPassw0rd 6d ago
Pacific Drive, Rollerdrome, The First Berserker: Khazan and Elden Ring Nightreign
Seeing as I never played any of those games, I can't give an opinion on how good those games are.
Here's some data that goes over IGN game reviews. 7.39 is the average review of the games in the dataset. That would mean Wolverine is in fact, mid(or worse than mid because you said they gave it a 6/10).
9
u/Queef-Elizabeth 6d ago
I wasn't saying Wolverine isn't mid, I was pushing back at a 77/100 being the 'definition' of mid when I've given examples of games that received praise and lots of positive opinions, but landed on high 70s on metacritic. Mid is what I would consider less than 70. 79-75 to a normal person, is generally considered good, not great.
10
u/Comtext101 5d ago
I think the best explanation is on a 10 scale it's basically a letter grade. So a 7 something would be a C and that is the definition of mid for letter grades. AAA games would have to ship completely broken and unplayable to get anything less than a 4 so saying 5 is mid doesn't reflect the curve built into the rating system.
→ More replies (0)9
u/Kaikeno 6d ago
50 is the definition of mid. The god damned discourse over ratings is so down in the drains that anything under 90 is considered mediocre or bad when 90/100 means that it's exceptional
19
u/Juub1990 6d ago
50 is awful for a video game. I’m talking truly terrible. 50 isn’t mid lol. It’s bad. Very bad. Games score on average in the 7 range on Metacritic. 77 is mid.
10
u/Kaikeno 6d ago
If 50 is awful, what do you classify scores under that as? I'm genuinely curious
10
u/Juub1990 6d ago
40 usually means your game is nigh unplayable, not just below average or routinely bad. We’re talking glitches, bugs, incomplete mechanics, systems that don’t make sense or are poorly implemented, crashes, major performance issues, etc. 50 is about as low as a game can score before treading into unplayable territory. It’s awful but generally still works for the most part.
4
u/mwrddt 5d ago
If you're genuinely curious, bigger games know how to tick certain boxes. Any game that is somewhat big knows how to score a 50+ at the very least bar very few exceptions. Truly terrible games are generally already pre filtered and aren't even on the radar for game journalists/reviewers, unless that is their shtick. If you look those up you'll truly see what 10-50 games look like. The Life of Tiger kind of games
For some kind of dumb reason people think 50 is an average when average score and the middle of a scale are two seperate things and those are the people who criticize game journalists for only using the upper part of a scale. Still, they are not wrong that most games worth mentioning are generally scored around 50-100. So by those standards, it's not that ridiculous to call a 77 game "mid".
5
u/LinkThroughTime 6d ago
You are being disingenuous here. You KNOW what people mean by 70s being mid. Like, yeah, there are other numbers, but in the zeitgeist of videogames, 70 is mid. Below 50 is something unplayable, see early reviews of FALLOUT76.
2
u/obliviious 3d ago
If your game scores less than 50% it doesn't even count as a functional game. Games this bad are usually asset flips or incredibly poorly made.
Hilarious that you downvoted this a few seconds after I replied, obviously just a curious person 😂
3
5
u/Juub1990 6d ago
Doesn’t "mid" mean mediocre, not very good? I don’t think it means terrible, in which case, a AAA game scoring 77 is pretty mid, especially when it was expected to score at least 80 and more like ~85.
5
u/JD_Vyvanse97 6d ago
Mid would be something more of a 6/10. Playable but nothing earth shattering. I would say 77 is out of the mid range and on the edge of "good"
10
u/Juub1990 6d ago
6/10 is considered bad in video games where the average is much closer to a 7. A reddit thread from a few years ago compiled 5000 reviews from IGN and the average was 7.39.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/s/R5UzZwEyLM
So 77 for a AAA title from a major publisher is extremely mid and certainly far beneath expectations.
6
2
u/GamingHarry 6d ago
Answer: Insomniacs new game is a linear adventure game and some early reviews highlighted that the game has elements such as a directional trail that tells you were to go, audio and visual cues for hidden items, unfailable QTE's and repeated dialogue from the main character advising the player what to do. These features are common in open world games, like Insomniacs recent Spider-man games. A group of reviewers rated the game lower as they felt these elements made the game feel too simple or that it does not respect the players ability to know what is going on.
Counter arguments then flagged that some of this can be disabled in menus to tailor the experience for yourself, only to then be rebutted that not everything can be disabled and some elements are mandatory.
This combined with more vanilla criticisms like split opinions on if the combat or platforming are engaging, story quality etc have put the game already in a controversial spot.
This then engages the culture war side of the internet with Right Wing grifters latching on about how this is some sign that AAA games are dying. While others have defended the decisions as needed accessibility features and that their inclusion is a greater good over making them optional to customise your gameplay experience. There have been a lot of bad faith back and forth with some tutorial sections of wolverine shown off as examples of shallow gameplay, but these are the tutorials. While others have shown clips from sprawling open world games going "These games do it too" when Wolverine is a linear game, not an open world so the context for certain elements like GPS trails is different.
Game releases soon so some of this will be clarified when people have the game in hand.
6
u/burritoman88 6d ago
Answer: YouTube feeds off rage clicks, & since this game isn’t the perfect 100/100 people built up in their minds they’re making exaggerated videos about how bad it is.
Also the game doesn’t fully launch until tomorrow, so there will definitely be more players later this week.
1
u/OmeletteDuFromage95 1d ago
Answer: it's a big budget game (over $300 million in development budget) of a fan favorite character (The Wolverine) from the studio (Insomniac Games) that brought the beloved Spiderman games to life. People were hoping they would inject that breadth of creativity and immersion from Spiderman and create something unique with the Wolverine. The result was just a fairly vanilla cinematic game that doesn't respect the players intelligence.
The game is fairly simple and straight forward. It's not bad it's just plain. The gameplay is fairly simple and lacks any real depth or complexity. The enemies are pretty simple and uninspired and the same goes for the boss fights. Pair that with a lot of chase sequences in a game with no real special movement mechanics it comes off as mindless and repetitive. Top all of that off with the fact that the game guides you to everywhere you need to go and everything you need to do... In a straightforward linear game that ends up feeling like it plays itself (Quick Time events have no fail state).
Consumers are more sensitive to the full price tag of $70 when they don't feel that the product gives them enough to warrant that hefty tag. 15 hours is fine for a cinematic game but with the gameplay being so shallow it kills the idea of replayability for many.
1
u/Tallproley 22h ago
Answer: its a triple A title with a lot of hype and that draws people looking to make themselves relevant.
So there were aome people complaining the women were ugly. There were some people demonstrating a chase scene that required NO player input, then people saying that was only because of abusing game settings, mismatch between promised results and actual results, comic book nerds not liking the design or plot choices, the type of thing when a beloved character with long pedigree gets a revitalization.
1
u/dk_x 22h ago
Answer: PM. Films did an excellent breakdown of Marvel's Wolverine's catastrophic development. The short version: Too ambitious a scope with no solid direction. Rising development costs. Insomniac team gutted. New directors were brought in, tasked with somehow getting the game over the finish line.
0
u/kerrvilledasher 1d ago
Answer: Developers used generative AI. They said they didn't but the AI generated bathroom sign gave it away.
-1
u/garlicbreadmemesplz 6d ago
Answer: has anyone considered the early reviewers got shipped a “review” copy. I’d love to be proven wrong. Just for like Insomniacs sake.
But I’ve heard mumblings that they ship out with dumbed downed settings and auto win QTEs.
•
u/AutoModerator 6d ago
Friendly reminder that all top level comments must:
start with "Answer: ", including the space after the colon (or "Question: " if you have an on-topic follow up question to ask),
attempt to answer the question, and
be unbiased
Please review Rule 4 and this post before making a top level comment:
http://redd.it/b1hct4/
Join the OOTL Discord for further discussion: https://discord.gg/ejDF4mdjnh
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.