Marvel’s Wolverine has been out for a day, and while I thought the game was mostly fine, the latest superhero action game from Insomniac was already coming in with a lot of negative momentum for perceptions among some that the game is aggressively handholdy, thanks to its linear structure and its insistence on giving players a literal scent trail leading to their objective. However, now that more people are playing the game, more of the little ways the game almost “plays itself” are getting under players’ skin, and has people sharing a specific sequence where Logan takes part in a heated motorcycle chase as indicative of all the game’s problems.
While some fans are debating the legitimacy of such criticisms, one fundamental truth is that many of Wolverine’s quick-time event segments, which usually have Logan doing sick stunts in not-so-interactive action scenes if the player presses a button, do not actually require player input to complete. Historically, QTEs have had a fail state. Misclick during an action sequence in the tie-in game for the 2007 film Spider-Man 3, for instance, and Peter would faceplant and catch on fire while a hostage realized that she was about to be similarly cooked. Wolverine, however, puts button prompts onscreen mostly as decoration, because if you miss the window or press the wrong button, Logan is still going to do whatever cool thing he was going to do.
In Wolverine, several sequences play out largely the same regardless of whether or not you respond to the prompts in time, and the illusion of input shatters in some segments if you simply don’t press a button. (This is true regardless of whether or not you turn on the QTE autocomplete option in the game’s accessibility features.) You might get a slight variation, such as in an arm wrestling scene against Sabretooth where Logan doesn’t seem to get the upper hand if you choose not to press any of the game’s button prompts, but ultimately, there aren’t exactly major consequences for failing to button mash.
Completing VS Failing QTE in the Sabertooth Arm Wrestling sequence in Marvel Wolverine pic.twitter.com/6kEi6VWnmW
— NikTek (@NikTek) September 15, 2026
However, it’s not like missing QTEs throughout the game have no tangible effect. In some cases, Logan will take damage he doesn’t have to, which will put players at a disadvantage when they get into a proper scrap later in the level.
In these cases, it comes down to a debate about whether or not failing a QTE should result in an immediate game over or just inflict one of a thousand cuts that might lead you to dying later. Whatever your feelings on the matter, saying that none of Wolverine’s QTEs have any consequence is false, but it’s definitely true that there are segments in the game that will “play themselves.”
Outside of the QTEs, one segment that is going viral on social media is a motorcycle chase in which Logan hops on a chopper and pursues a truck carrying captive mutants. Some clips are circulating of people not actually playing the game during this section, letting Wolverine barrel down the roads on autopilot. The idea is that you steer left and right to avoid incoming cars and make quick turns. However, as some have discovered, Logan can bounce between guardrails and eventually reach the end without player input.
He CAN die. You do not need to control the bike. https://t.co/76EI4lDAy8 pic.twitter.com/6mPKHnxNne
— Clint Beastwood (@woodbeastclint) September 15, 2026
Ironically, actually putting your hands on the controller during the segment makes it much more likely that you’ll die. Logan can get into a head-on collision, which will send you back to your last checkpoint, but footage being shared on social media indicates that he will typically avoid doing so on his own. Each time he hits one of the guard rails, he seems to ricochet and automatically steers himself back onto the path. You’re given options to accelerate and brake, but you don’t really have to, because Logan will reach his destination without your help. His healing factor ability kicks in throughout the level, meaning that even the damage he takes when he collides with an obstacle is negligible in the long run.
For some, these kinds of design decisions lower the game’s stakes. Often, the fear of failing a challenging segment is what keeps a player on their toes and engaged, and for those folks, knowing that at least some parts of Wolverine will happen whether you’re actively playing or not can feel antithetical to what a video game is supposed to be. Players like to feel like their involvement matters and if a game can “play itself,” what makes it any different from a movie? For what it’s worth, the hack-and-slash combat of Wolverine can be challenging as enemies overwhelm you, so the game puts demands on your skill in other ways, but when people are already growing tired of PlayStation’s pivot to movie-like prestige storytelling over raw mechanics, anything that feels like it’s trying to remove the player from the equation is going to face scrutiny.
