Marvel’s Wolverineoffers players the chance to customize their playstyles with different techniques and adaptations and the team at Insomniac has a few favorites.
Marvel’s Wolverine offers players the chance to enhance Logan’s combat approach with new techniques, perks, and buffs throughout the game as they level up and complete more Nightmare Door challenges throughout the game.
Videos by VICE
VICE recently had a chance to sit down with some key members of the Marvel’s Wolverine team from Insomniac Games and talk about the design philosophy behind the technique and adaptation systems and some of the best builds to harness Wolverine’s power in the game.
VICE:On paper, the skill tree progression in Wolverine can look straightforward, but combat can end up feeling different depending on how you set up Logan. How do you respond to players who might think linear progression means limited build diversity?
Mike Daly, Game Director:We wanted every entry in your Technique library to be a new move. We wanted each of these moves to stand on their own with a distinct role to fill in the combat system. If you leverage the moves well, they make a big difference so players’ experiences can be very different depending on their choices. Because of this independence, we could get rid of dependency chains so you have more flexibility to mix and match instead of being locked into paths early.
With traditional skill trees you still have dependency chains, level gates, escalating costs, and
filler skills that meter out progression but we wanted to cut to the chase and say “for each
level, pick the move you want” so that the focus of your decision was on the nature of the
move itself and not the progression scaffolding around it.
VICE: For players looking to tinker with the different Special Techniques (like Tornado Spin,
Spiral Strike, or Overwhelm) alongside Adaptations, what are some favorite developer-
recommended builds for different playstyles?
Mike Daly, Game Director:I love putting Knee Beaker special on triangle and using the Combo Ender Recharge adaptation with it. Knee Breaker already recharges more quickly than the other specials, and the stagger it causes unlocks the benefits of other adaptations so I’ll add in the ones that stack on enders and Barrage – Enraging Ender, Enraging Barrage, and Barrage Recharge. Once I’ve acquired the Lethal Disarm technique, Reckless attacks become more common, so I’ll equip Healing Dangerously.
Jason Berlin, Development Support Manager: Here’s what we use for a Nonstop Crit /Rage Machine… At Max level Overwhelm can allow you usually two kills and all kills recharge the tech faster. It can also allow for Barrage attacks on tougher enemies.
- Equip Overwhelm on Square and equip the Adaptation Barrage Recharge to add to
- Overwhelms recharge rate.
- Then equip Enraging Barrage – to take advantage of the barrages and build extra rage.
- Add Knee Breaker to allow for more opportunities to stagger enemies and use barrage and Brutal Assault as another way to increase rage gains.
Then set the following Adaptations and you should become a non-stop killing machine:
- Healing Crit – Get health from Crit Kills
- Expanded Crit – Increases chances for Crit Kills
- Rage Intimidation – Increases chances for Crit Kills
- Tier 2 Crit – Increases chances for Crit Kills
- Leaping Crit – Increases chances for Crit Kills
- Chain Crit – Extra Crit kill
- Rage Longer – Increase time for Crit kills
- Enraged Recharger – Use Rage to recharge specials faster
For a Defensive Healing Machine build – Focus on weaving in the following Techs during combat encounters – Dodge Retaliate / Power Attack Counter / Advanced Parry / Helix Counter Shot. Then Equip Special Tech Relentless to X.
- Equip the following Adaptations
- Parry Recharge – Increase rate of recharge for Relentless
- Extended Parry – Increase parry window for less misses
- Healing Parry – Get Health off Parries
- Healing Dodge – Get Health off Dodges
- Tough Skin – Take more hits
- Dodge recharge – Assign favorite Offensive Special tech to O to get a recharge boost
Fred Corchero, Senior Combat Designer: I’d look at three different approaches depending on how players like to fight.
- Aggressive / Rage-focused: Pair Tornado Spin with Enraging Barrage, Enraging Ender, and Enraged Recharge. You’re constantly building Rage, dealing damage to groups, and cycling Special Techniques faster.
- Mobility / Crowd control: Combine Spiral Strike and Overwhelm with Barrage Recharge and Combo Ender Recharger. This gives you ways to break through surrounding enemies, reposition, and keep the pressure on.
- Survivability / Counterattack: Build around Overwhelm and Relentless, supported by Extended Parry, Healing Parry, and Tough Skinned. This increases defensive options and rewards good timing to stay in the fight longer.
Those builds definitely open up some interesting opens that players can use if they’re picking up the game this holiday shopping season or if they’ve already played through and want to tackle it again with a different strategy.
Be sure to check back soon for lots more Insomniac Games and Marvel’s Wolverine news and updates.
Marvel’s Wolverine is available now exclusively on the PS5.
