Controversy continues to swirl around Marvel’s Wolverine.
The trailers blew our expectations out of the water a few months ago. Critics and audiences alike praised the vibrant visuals and brutal action. Wolverine should have taken its place alongside Marvel’s Spider-Man and Arkham Asylum as a surprising triumph in a sea of abysmal video game adaptations of existing Hollywood properties.
But it looks like we celebrated too soon. Wolverine is unlikely to recoup its $300M budget. Admittedly, people have exaggerated the game’s weaknesses. Wolverine is not the worst title to debut in 2026, not by a long shot.
Chief amongst the complaints is the game’s extensive handholding. You have probably seen those short clips on social media where players drop the controller during a crucial moment, only for the game to essentially play itself by guiding Logan safely across the finish line.
I can’t help but compare this phenomenon to the Elden Ring debate. Back then, numerous entertainment journalists and mainstream YouTubers criticized the video game for being too difficult.
Now, who cares if a video game is too hard? Video games are not a right. You don’t have to play them. Unfortunately, the Elden Ring hate was a little more sophisticated. Some critics argued that modern video games had become exclusionary.
They were made with only able-bodied players in mind while discriminating against their disabled counterparts: individuals with physical or mental limitations who cannot meet the taxing demands of a ‘From Software’ property.
While I rejected the Elden Ring hate at the time, I also understood the complaint. Well, that isn’t true. I felt like dedicated gamers had become snobs. They took great pride in defeating popular video games at the highest difficulty, which is perfectly fine.
But then, they went a step further by dismissing anyone who could not perform at their level. They routinely belittled gamers who preferred to play on the easiest difficulty settings.
I distinctly remember arguing against those elitist mindsets and concluding that one’s chosen difficulty in a video game was neither something to celebrate nor downplay. However, I’m starting to change my mind.
I can’t help but feel like Wolverine is part of a response to the Elden Ring critics who haven’t stopped calling for studios to make more ‘accessible/inclusive’ games. I don’t have any evidence to back this conclusion, but I feel like video games as a whole have become significantly easier.
And that is not a bad thing. At the same time, I’m starting to think that challenging video games have significantly more to offer than their easier/accessible counterparts. Think about all the video games you start and drop after a few weeks, not because you are bored, but rather… Well, you don’t know why.
This also happens with TV shows. People drop shows they love all the time simply because the motivation to watch them fades. Video games suffer a similar fate. And yet, these same adults will tell you that they want nothing more than to lose themselves in a video game.
They just can’t find the energy to commit to a single title. A challenge gives you that motivation. It creates an objective for you to play, then it rewards your hard work. More than that, do you remember all those gaming benefits we discussed (improved memory, coordination, cognitive functions)?
The more challenging the video game, the stronger those benefits. At the very least, they will enhance your ability to adapt to complex real-world environments. To clarify, this is not aimed at adults with exhausting schedules, who have neither the time nor the mental capacity to play Elden Ring.
I am talking to those people who normally shy away from difficult games because they are hard. If you listen to that voice in your head when it says that you can’t beat Elden Ring, you will also listen when it assures you that you can’t get that job/bid/business/ project/husband/wife, etc.
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