Wolverine's Scent Trail Isn't Always On, Says Insomniac - But I'd Still Love a Toggle

My nephew and I have a rule on the couch: whoever's holding the controller decides whether we open the map. He's nine, he hates getting lost, and he'd happily follow a glowing line across an entire continent. I, on the other hand, secretly love wandering in the wrong direction for ten minutes. Which is exactly why this week's weirdest console debate got me thinking.

It's about Marvel's Wolverine, Insomniac's PS5 exclusive that launches on September 15. Reviews went live this week, and one detail has stolen the spotlight from the claws and the combat: Logan's scent trail. It's a wispy blue line that hangs behind the people or things he's tracking, and after Washington Post journalist Gene Park described it as "fart gas", the internet did what the internet does. The nickname stuck, and with it came a wave of players asking for a way to switch the trail off completely.

Insomniac community director James Stevenson has now stepped in to clear a few things up. His point: the trail isn't permanently glued to your screen. It represents Logan's canon mutant senses and tracking skills, and it appears when he's following a specific scent or sound during story and mission moments, or when he gets close enough to a collectible to catch a whiff of it.

Honestly, both sides have a point

I get why Insomniac built it this way. Wolverine sniffing out his targets is about as on-brand as it gets, and a guide that lives inside the game world beats a floating HUD arrow any day. For newcomers, younger players, or anyone who grabs an hour after work and just wants to know where to go, a trail like this is a gift. Not everyone has the patience - or the time - to get lost on purpose.

But I also understand the people asking for a toggle. Some players want to explore on their own terms, some find extra on-screen effects distracting, and "it's not always on" isn't quite the same as "you can turn it off". From what's been reported so far, there's currently no menu option to disable it entirely, and that's really what the whole fuss is about.

Insomniac has a strong track record with accessibility options in its Spider-Man and Ratchet & Clank games, so this feels less like a stubborn design stance and more like one missing switch. A simple on/off (or a "subtle" setting that dials the effect down) would let my nephew keep his glowing highway and let me get gloriously lost. Nobody loses anything.

Either way, I'm not letting a puff of blue smoke put me off a Wolverine game I've been waiting years for. I just hope that switch turns up in a patch - and that the "fart gas" name eventually fades, even though, I'll admit, it made me laugh.

Image: Sergey Galyonkin / CC BY-SA 2.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Playstation_Dualsense_controller.jpg