PS5’s Wolverine Slammed for “PS2-Level” Water Effects — Sparks Zelda and GTA Comparisons

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The story

Footage of the PS5-exclusive title “Marvel’s Wolverine” drew attention on X (formerly Twitter) when its rough, “PS2-level” water effects raked in over 50,000 likes. Once the clip made its way to 5ch’s hardware/industry board (Geha), the discussion evolved into comparisons with the water in “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” and the unnatural splashes and ragdoll movement in the GTA6 trailer. Opinions split over which game’s effects actually held up better — and whether the comparison even made sense in the first place — with the thread running long as posters also chimed in on Wolverine’s redesigned look.

No exaggeration, this is genuinely PS2-quality lol

Source: video.twimg.com / original clip here

What people said

15AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:32

By the way, this blew up past 50k likes — it's genuinely become a worldwide laughingstock
17AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:32
Re: #15
The mutant who makes everyone smile
25AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:42
Zelda's water beats GTA's, no contest

Ocarina of Time's water physics are better than GTA VI's 🤯
https://x.com/JeltyTV/status/2097877143057482017
34AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:53
Re: #25
Zelda's always had gorgeous water effects
Meanwhile GTA's is sloppy
Even the ragdoll does a weird little spin after flying through the air lol
41AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:56
Re: #25
I don't even get what's supposed to be "better" here
GTA's got it beat since they even modeled underwater detail
They built out hundreds of kilometers of ocean, deep-sea fish and all
58AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:01
Re: #25
GTA's water is total garbage
The fluid sim looks like someone dropped a pebble in a puddle lol
*plop* lol
35AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:54
Can we drop the Zelda talk already
Just reminds me of the loading times and I can't stop laughing
39AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:55
Re: #35
Dead serious, lol

Someone's mad? lol
43AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:56
Re: #39
Try speaking proper Japanese
44AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:57
Re: #39
That guy's already cycling through IDs (switching poster IDs to dodge scrutiny)
40AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:56
Re: #33
Baked lighting, now that's nostalgic
It was famous back in the PS3/360 era, like in Sonic Unleashed
Nishikawa even wrote an article about it
45AnonymousSep 17, 2026 00:57
Re: #40
"PS3/360"…
Guess Nintendo really has no technical chops
60AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:02
Re: #40
The people who used to break this stuff down on gaming sites back then are all covering other genres now, huh
Or they've retired… kind of makes me sad
69AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:06
Re: #58
Apparently it looks cheap because they're using Sony's bargain-bin engine
Even the guy flying through the air does a full rotation ignoring gravity
Hard to believe this is the quality after 13 years and 200 billion yen
84AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:12
Re: #69
I hadn't even noticed the guy lol He's really spinning in zero gravity lol
Doesn't matter what the framerate is, the physics engine is just garbage lol
89AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:16
Speaking of water effects, the pond with the koi in the cutscene looks pretty bad too
99AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:19
Re: #89
This one?
Look at just this part and it really does look like PS2
https://hstorage.jp/dl/6YeVSlhSdMXD.png
163AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:36
Re: #99
That's just as bad as GTA's zero-gravity spin
Guess nobody involved has the technical chops
132AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:28
https://x.com/xboxbg/status/2100019186852405685?s=46
By the way, this is the part everyone's making fun of right now
157AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:35
Re: #132
Every time I see Wolverine's bare face I think…
something's just missing, it doesn't hit hard…
I picture him as more feral, more savage, but here he looks weirdly gentle
161AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:35
Re: #157
Right there with you
Zero rough edge to him, it's like "who even is this guy"
167AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:38
Re: #157
Even fans overseas are saying they've softened him up compared to the original actor
https://x.com/playstation/status/2099868339161948540?s=46
183AnonymousSep 17, 2026 01:44
The smear campaign against Spider-Man 2 was brutal too
People kept saying 2 was a downgrade from 1 and all that


Background and Key Points of This Discussion

It’s worth noting that the footage that kicked this off appears to be from a work-in-progress build, so it doesn’t necessarily reflect the quality of the finished product. Also, the comparison point that came up — “The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time” — is a 1998 Nintendo 64 title whose water effects were exceptionally sophisticated for their era, a reputation that has lived on as an internet meme ever since, which makes a straight comparison with a cutting-edge PS5 title a bit of a stretch. Some posters claimed it was “because of Sony’s cheap engine,” but that’s unsubstantiated speculation — GTA6, for its part, is known to run on Rockstar Games’ own in-house engine, RAGE, so readers should take some of the thread’s technical claims with a grain of salt, since a few of them are simply inaccurate. What really divided the discussion wasn’t the roughness of the water effects themselves so much as a side issue: whether the gravity-defying “one full spin” that became a talking point in the GTA6 trailer was an actual bug or an intentional animation choice — and since neither side could produce any conclusive evidence, it devolved into an endless back-and-forth.

※This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [Geha]) thread “[Sad News] PS5 Wolverine’s Water Effects Are Genuinely Being Called PS2-Level.”

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