Marvel’s Wolverine Lock-On Settings: On, Off, or On Screen?

The internet loves telling you to set lock-on to “On Screen” in Marvel’s Wolverine. The logic sounds flawless. Tap L3 to lock the nearest enemy, cycle targets at will, keep your thumb on the stick. That advice works — until it doesn’t.

Here’s the plain answer: Marvel’s Wolverine’s lock-on setting defaults to Off, and many players should leave it there. The “On Screen” option is a tool, not an upgrade, and it fails in the precise scenarios where you need it most.

The smartest play is to stop treating lock-on as a setting to set once. It's a combat tool to toggle per fight, per enemy type, per situation.

What Each Lock-On Setting Actually Does

Marvel’s Wolverine gives you three options under Settings > Gameplay > Lock On: Off, On Screen, and All.

• Off: No lock-on. Your camera stays where you point it. You manually track enemies with the right stick.
• On Screen: Pressing L3 targets the nearest enemy on your screen. Once you defeat them, the lock shifts to the next visible threat.
• All: Pressing L3 targets the nearest enemy, whether they’re on screen or off. Defeating one auto-locks to the next nearest foe within range.

The game ships with the setting Off. That is not an accident.

The Hidden Cost of Auto-Lock

Insomniac’s combat is designed for chaos. Enemies surround you, flank you, and attack from every angle. The red and yellow attack flashes — power attacks and parryable reckless attacks — are your main survival cues.

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Lock-on “All” actively fights that design. When the camera locks to a foe you can’t see, you lose spatial awareness. An enemy behind you starts a red power attack. Your locked camera stays fixed on the target ahead. You can’t see the flash, can’t dodge, and get staggered by something you never saw coming.

This is the gap between advice and practice. “All” sounds like it solves the off-screen enemy problem. In reality, it creates a tunnel vision that leaves you blind to everything else.

The “On Screen” Reality Check

“On Screen” is the middle ground, and it fixes one problem while creating another. The targeting priority system works like this: press L3 to focus the nearest visible enemy, and once defeated, the lock jumps to the next nearest enemy within range. On-screen enemies have higher priority.

The failure case is the camera rotation assist. The game’s combat camera rotation assist setting, which helps keep enemies in view, can fight your manual camera input. When you’re locked on and the camera rotates to track your target, you lose the ability to look around for incoming attacks.

In practice, that means:

• Locking on during a busy fight reduces your awareness of the full battlefield.
• The camera can swing wildly when you cycle targets, disorienting you mid-combo.
• Parrying becomes unreliable because you’re facing the locked target, not necessarily the enemy swinging at you.

Where Lock-On Actually Helps

The lock-on shines in specific scenarios, not as a permanent state. In the Omega Red boss fight, the camera can lose the boss when he dashes off-screen. A single L3 tap re-centers the fight immediately.

Against a single elite or leader enemy, lock-on keeps your attacks focused. You don’t drift toward weaker enemies or waste your critical strike on a random grunt.

The most practical setup from community testing: L3 to lock on-screen enemies only, and rely on the game’s combat camera rotation assist to keep threats visible. The assist setting, found under Settings > Camera, automatically rotates the camera during combat to keep enemies in view.

Testing the Settings Yourself

Every controller setup changes the math. The Scuf Omega, with its extra back buttons, lets you leap, dodge, and critical strike without moving your right thumb. That frees you to manage the camera manually — making lock-on less necessary.

On a standard DualSense, you’ll take your thumb off the right stick for face buttons. That’s where lock-on as a temporary tool helps. Tap L3, land your square attacks, tap L3 again to release.

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Try this sequence:

1. Set Lock On to On Screen.
2. Turn Combat Camera Rotation Assist on.
3. Play without holding L3 for the first hour.
4. Use L3 only during boss fights or when a single elite needs attention.
5. Switch back to Off if the camera feels like it’s fighting you.

An Unexpected Setting Worth Your Attention

The “All” setting can create a cinematic momentum once you’ve unlocked Stagger Leap. Hold triangle to charge, and the lock-on system auto-targets the next enemy — leaping across the screen to off-screen foes you haven’t even spotted yet.

It feels like Wolverine’s video game equivalent of the classic X-Men comic’s feral tracking. You don’t know which enemy you’ll land on. You just know you’re moving.

This is a fun, disorienting way to play the second playthrough. It’s a terrible choice for your first.

The smartest play is to stop treating lock-on as a setting to set once. It’s a combat tool to toggle per fight, per enemy type, per situation. Master the toggle, and you’ll feel the difference.