Marvel’s Wolverine tears through critics’ reviews thanks to fan praises

Image courtesy of Insomniac Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment

15 September 2026 marks the official launch day of Marvel’s Wolverine, the PS5-exclusive superhero, gore-filled action game starring Wolverine (Liam McIntyre) and other iconic mutants such as Sabretooth (Brett Gipson) and Jean Grey (Krizia Bajos). 

Despite early critics and online-gamer reviews showing a mixed reception, Wolverine has managed to win over most fans. 

Wolverine’s launch faced notable challenges from these reviews, including IGN, who rated the game a 6/10 or ‘Okay’.  

Simon Cardy, Senior Editor at IGN, found his review in the centre of both the Marvel and Gaming communities due to his evaluation of the game. 

On one hand, he argued he felt ‘most connected’ with Wolverine’s adaptation, notably the ‘nuances’ of his character. However, Cardy found flaws within level design arguing that ‘These arenas aren’t constructed in overly interesting ways.’ Narratively speaking, Cardy conveyed his frustration with a lack of ‘character arcs’ for characters other than Logan and Jean. 

Similarly, Ryan Cole at Metacritic reported how the game scored a review score of 77, an identical score to Elden Ring: Nightreign, whilst also being the lowest-rated Insomniac game made under Marvel.  

Cole conveyed how the game received lower scores than the Spider-Man trilogy, also produced by Insomniac, due to ‘a more predictable, linear structure’ for its level design.  

Cole also emphasised how the sales performance of the game will be unknown for a while, as Spider-Man 2 alone didn’t receive public information on its sales performance for 100 days. 

However, these reviews have been sharply contrasted by public gamers opinions. At the time of writing, Forbes reported that the PlayStation Store displays a 4.84 out of 5-star review. They explain this equates to a 97 Metacritic Score. 

Similarly, YouTube channel Digital Foundry concluded the game felt ‘very polished’ and argued it offered a ‘classic AAA experience’. He also conveyed the highlight of the game being its cut-throat combat. 

Before its eventual release, Wolverine did face significant challenges in development. On 12 December 2023, Insomniac was subjugated to a cyberattack by Rhysida, a partially Russian-based hacker group. 

After demanding 50 Bitcoin, or $2million dollars, Sony and Insomniac refused to pay them. 

As a result, early cutscenes and a later-removed second playable character in Jean Grey, the telepathic, telekinetic mutant and host of the Phoenix Force, were leaked to the public. 

Additionally, X-Men fans were sceptical of the game’s plot as the X-Men themselves, the team of Mutants formed by Charles Xavier, were absent from the plot and replaced by Team X, a mutant task force unaffiliated with Xavier. 

Yet, early reactions of fans and gamers display that the game will find a semblance of success in its fanbase.