Looks like I was right…

I’m not here to dunk on Marvel’s Wolverine. Plenty of people are doing that today. What interests me is what the reaction signals about where every entertainment industry currently sits.

Skill Up’s review is the clip everybody’s sharing, and his point is that the game coddles the player to the point that failure becomes impossible. Other reviews landed in the same place, calling the guidance conspicuous and the design patronising. And worth saying plainly: this is not a panned game. Reviews are mixed to positive, the combat and presentation get real praise, and Skill Up called the storytelling the most impressive part of it.

The design question is the interesting one. When you build core gameplay that has to serve hardcore action players and story-first players simultaneously, that is genuinely hard, which is why difficulty options so often default to turning enemies into bullet sponges. Accessibility options are good and always have been. That was never the argument. The argument is that when the default experience assumes the player knows nothing, you can end up master of none.

Yes, some of this can be turned off. The objection is that it’s the out-of-the-box experience.

The signal matters more than the game: mega corporate IP casting the widest possible net, because more buyers is the goal, and sometimes that costs you the thing you were making.