f you’re a film fan suffering from superhero fatigue, spare a thought for gamers. In the past five years, Marvel has put their spin on everything from multiplayer hero shooters to arcade beat ‘em ups. Even the humble card game has been comic book-ified with . The very best of a very mixed bunch? High-octane, web-slinging adventure .

Created by Insomniac Games as the sequel to the equally excellent 2018 original, you are free to swing across a gorgeous, open-world New York City, team up with fellow heroes to complete side-quests and ultimately save the Big Apple from a rogues’ gallery that includes dastardly favourites Venom and Kraven The Hunter. Insomniac’s follow-up is a very different beast indeed though.

While the friendly neighbourhood spider has a strict moral code and relies on speed and agility to achieve his objectives, Wolverine is an adamantium-clawed killing machine who (almost) cannot die. And the combat-heavy new game takes full advantage of this gruff, tough hero.

Set in an alternate reality to every X-Men movie you’ve seen, Wolverine is a reluctant member of superhero crime fighters Team X alongside shapeshifter Mystique and the abrasive, lupine Sabretooth. What starts as a mission to rescue their leader Dr. Nathaniel Essex from tentacled baddie Omega Red quickly spirals into a globe-trotting quest to stop billionaire Bolivar Trask from hunting down and killing all mutants with the help of his army of cybernetically-enhanced soldiers and huge Sentinel robots.

You’ll spend some of the game’s 15-hour runtime scouring high-tech laboratories for plot-propelling tape recordings – and another good chunk traipsing around Essex’s luxurious mansion to find the crayon drawings that’ll coax nervy, recently-rescued outsider Leech from his bedroom – but most of is dedicated to documenting its fuming protagonist’s violent rampages. And that’s where the fun is, bub.

Wolverine can leap across vast distances to gut a gun-wielding grunt and uses his claws to parry blows from electro-sword-wielding Reavers before slicing them in half. Button-bashing combos unleash brutal special attacks and even the most basic of enemies put up a fight, which makes carving them into bits even more satisfying. Boss battles require more patience as you endure psychic blows and laser blasts long enough to inflict your own brand of razor-sharp vengeance. If at any point you deal enough damage, you’ll enter ‘Berserker’ mode which takes the gory violence to even nastier extremes.

In between the blood-soaked brawls and threats of a mutant genocide, tells a surprisingly tender story between Logan and fellow traumatised mutant Jean Grey. They meet via tragic circumstances but constantly find strength in each other – whether that’s delivering kick-ass combos or making gooey eyes at each other over a campfire. It’s probably not why you booted up the game, but it’ll keep you invested.

Lead actor Liam McIntryre’s take on Wolverine is more animalistic than Hugh Jackman’s, but his twitchy nostrils don’t distract from the pain that fuels his fury while Krizia Bajos’ Jean Grey strikes the perfect balance between empathy and vengeance. It’s the sort of gritty, grown-up take on two of the most famous X-Men that sets the stage nicely for future sequels – and maybe even an Avengers-style crossover.

‘Marvel’s Wolverine’ is out now for PlayStation 5