Marvel’s Wolverine gets first big fix after players slam scent trail

Barely a week after launch, Insomniac is already responding to one of the loudest complaints about Marvel's Wolverine. A new hotfix targets the game's most divisive feature: the smoke-trail scent ability that guides players toward collectibles and objectives, which many felt was too intrusive from the start.

Wolverine from Marvel started its journey on September 15, having good production standards yet a more polarising reaction in comparison to other titles of Insomniac's Spider-Man series.

The linear layout of the levels and the guiding system of the game got heavily criticised by fans, and specifically the scent trail because there was no option to switch it off.

James Stevenson from Insomniac stated that the developers wanted to simulate the mutant tracking capabilities of Wolverine with it.

However, this update does not change the feature itself but rather modifies it. The Scent Trail and Audio Sense icons both show up with less opacity than before the patch.

This update also fixes crashes experienced by a certain percentage of players since the game’s release. According to the company, it is still evaluating the Senses feature and considering options of toggling for the features in the next update.

Wolverine's scent trail joins a long list of signposting features that have split players before. Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth faced similar backlash over its yellow paint marking climbable surfaces, a technique also seen in Resident Evil 4 and Far Cry 5.

Critics in each case argued the visual cues pulled attention away from environmental design rather than helping players navigate it.