A glowing blue line that follows characters around in Marvel’s Wolverine has taken over the conversation about the game. Players call it the “fart gas trail,” and it appears during missions to point Logan toward his next objective. It became a lightning rod after reviews landed with the game sitting at a 78 on Metacritic, with critics saying the game holds your hand too tightly across its linear levels.
Quick answer: The blue scent trail is not always on and only appears when Logan is actively tracking a scent or sound. It represents his mutant senses, and it cannot be fully switched off, unlike waypoint markers and some other navigation aids.
What the blue scent trail is and when it appears
The trail is a visual effect tied to Logan’s sense of smell. It shows up as a colored line trailing a target, most often Jean Grey, and it guides you toward story objectives and collectibles. It is not a constant overlay. It surfaces when Logan is on the trail of a specific scent or sound, such as a person, whisky, or another clue.
For collectibles, the trail only kicks in once you are already close enough to pick up the scent or sound. In practice, that means it behaves like a marker during main missions and like a proximity cue when you wander near hidden items.
Insomniac’s official explanation
Insomniac community and marketing director James Stevenson addressed the effect directly after someone asked whether it could be turned off. He clarified that the trail is not on at all times and framed it as a deliberate lore choice rather than a simple objective marker.
It only is there when he’s tracking a specific scent/sound (a person, whisky, or another clue scent) – story/mission moments or when he catches a whiff of a collectible.
In his post on X, Stevenson described the effect as representing “Logan’s canon mutant super senses and elite tracking ability.” Enhanced smell is a long-standing part of the character in Marvel comics, which is the reasoning behind the trail existing at all.
What you can turn off and what stays on
The game includes several separate guidance layers, and they behave differently in the settings. Some can be disabled, but the scent trail itself remains active even with related options turned off. Reviewers testing the menus confirmed the trail’s particles stay visible after switching off navigation aids.
| Guidance element | Default | Can you disable it? |
|---|---|---|
| Mission waypoint icons (On / R3 Hint / Off) | On | Yes, can be fully turned off |
| Navigation Assist (directional guide) | On | Yes, but toggling it adds a second guidance line |
| Blue scent trail (“fart gas”) | On | No, it stays active |
Note: The scent trail is not part of the Navigation Assist toggle. Turning that option on can surface an additional line that points you where to go, which is separate from the blue trail itself.
How to check your settings
Why the trail matters for collectibles
Collectibles feed into the game’s trophy list, so the scent trail is a real help if you are chasing completion. The flip side is that it can reduce the surprise of stumbling onto hidden items on your own. Because the game is linear rather than open-world like Insomniac’s Spider-Man titles, some players feel the trail is more heavy-handed than it needs to be.
The debate echoes past flashpoints over on-screen guidance, from the “yellow paint” discussion in other big releases to the puddle controversy around Marvel’s Spider-Man in 2018. For now, the scent trail is a fixed feature rather than a bug, and any change would have to come from a future update. No such change to the trail has been confirmed.
