Marvel's Wolverine Lands a 78 on Metacritic, Sony's Lowest Rated PS5 Era First Party Game

Insomniac Games spent much of the past decade building the Marvel's Spider-Man series into one of the most dependable franchises in PlayStation's first-party catalog, with three consecutive releases that each cleared the mid-80s or better on Metacritic. When the studio announced it was turning to Wolverine, the expectation inside Sony Interactive Entertainment was that the same formula, tighter and bloodier and aimed at an older audience, would deliver another flagship exclusive for the PlayStation 5.

That expectation met reality on September 10, 2026, when Insomniac Games and Sony lifted the review embargo on Marvel's Wolverine at 8 a.m. PT, five days before the game's September 15 release. By the following morning the picture was clear: 78 on Metacritic across 112 critic reviews, roughly 79 on OpenCritic with about 75 percent of critics recommending it.

The numbers are respectable in isolation and awkward in context. Marvel's Wolverine is now the lowest-rated in-house PlayStation Studios game since the PS5 launched in 2020, below Sackboy: A Big Adventure and its 79, and it is Insomniac's worst-rated original title since Song of the Deep in 2016. It arrives as a full-priced $69.99 release, with a Digital Deluxe Edition at $79.99.

On the other side of the ledger, the game is a technically polished product: a linear, global action-adventure rather than an open world, running at 60 frames per second with ray tracing on the base PS5, shipping with 35 accessibility features, New Game+ and mission replays, and spanning Canada, Japan and the Marvel island nation of Madripoor. Whether that is enough is the question the aggregate has now answered.

Key Facts

Kotaku reported on September 10 that Marvel's Wolverine holds a Metascore of 77, making it the lowest-rated PlayStation Studios first-party game in the six-year history of the PS5. The site noted that the score holds even though many smaller international outlets handed out 9s and 10s, while larger outlets mostly settled on 6s, including Eurogamer, VGC, IGN, GameSpot and GamesRadar, with Giant Bomb lowest at 5. Metacritic weights its average by outlet reputation, which is part of why the cluster of high scores did not lift the total.

ComicBookCo reported on September 11 that the game sat at 78 on Metacritic across 112 reviews and about 79 on OpenCritic. Every prior Marvel game from the studio landed higher: Marvel's Spider-Man at 87 in 2018, Spider-Man: Miles Morales at 85 in 2020 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 at 90 in 2023. IGN and GameSpot each scored Wolverine 6 out of 10, while TheGamer gave it 4 out of 5. Critics consistently praised the combat and Liam McIntyre's performance as Logan but split on structure.

Beebom reported on September 14 that the game launches exclusively on PlayStation 5 on September 15, 2026 at 9 PM PT, which is 12 AM ET on September 15, with a simultaneous global rollout and no early-access window tied to pre-orders. Preloads opened on September 8 at 79.36 GB, and Insomniac Games has confirmed a day-one patch that adds Photo Mode alongside bug fixes. The Standard Edition costs $69.99 in the US, the Digital Deluxe Edition costs $79.99 with a $10 upgrade path, and pre-ordering unlocks the Classic Brown Suit and Reflective Claws.

PlayStation's official product page lists Marvel's Wolverine as a PS5 and PS5 Pro Enhanced single-player adventure from Insomniac Games, created in collaboration with Marvel Games, with offline play, Remote Play support, 35 accessibility features and power-saver support. The official synopsis follows Logan three years after he walked out on his team, rejoining the mutant task force Team X as Bolivar Trask kidnaps mutants.

GamesRadar reported on September 10 that the aggregate of 77 marks Insomniac's worst rating for an original game since 2016's Song of the Deep, well below expectations for a modern Sony first-party release. Its own review called the game never bad, just underwhelming, with a story that never coheres and fighting that peaks too early.

Analysis

What this really means is that Sony's first-party pipeline has a variance problem, and the reviews expose it more clearly than any sales chart could. The comparison set matters: God of War: Ragnarok at 94 remains the high-water mark of the PS5 era, and Sackboy: A Big Adventure at 79 was, until September 2026, the floor. Marvel's Wolverine at 77 to 78 slips beneath that floor, which is not a catastrophe but is a meaningful signal about how a tentpole production can land when it is built on a linear template that reviewers increasingly describe as dated.

The critique is remarkably consistent across outlets. Reviewers said the scent trail stays visible even after related navigation options are turned off in settings. They described a campaign of roughly 10 to 15 hours, thin enemy variety and heavy on-screen guidance. Gene Park of The Washington Post nicknamed the persistent blue trail that follows Jean Grey "fart gas."

GamesRadar's Dustin Bailey framed the result as particularly painful because first-party PlayStation games arrive so rarely that getting more than two a year is now lucky, and when one misses, it stings. That context cuts both ways. A 77 is not a failure in absolute terms; it is a failure relative to the expectations Sony itself set with Spider-Man 2 at 90 and Ragnarok at 94, and relative to a $69.99 price that Kotaku noted can make a merely fine release feel prohibitively expensive.

The bigger picture here is that weighted aggregates punish exactly the kind of game Wolverine is: competent, polished and conventional. Smaller outlets gave it 9s and 10s, the more world-weary ones gave it 6s, and because Metacritic weights by outlet reputation, the 6s won. Insomniac's own history is the harshest benchmark, since every Marvel title it shipped before this one cleared 85.

Why It Matters

For Sony, the timing is the problem. The PS5 is in its sixth year and the exclusive lineup is thin by the standards of previous generations, which is why a first-party miss draws so much attention. A single mid-70s score does not sink a platform, and Kotaku noted that Sony's in-house teams are still doing well overall, but it removes one of the few guaranteed system sellers from the calendar at a moment when the company needs them.

For Insomniac Games, the stakes are reputational and structural. The studio has been one of PlayStation's most dependable performers since the PS5 launched, and Marvel's Wolverine is its first original release in roughly a decade to land in this range, below Sunset Overdrive and much of the Ratchet & Clank series. The game's linear design, a deliberate departure from the open-world Spider-Man template, is precisely the choice reviewers singled out as dated, which raises questions about whether the studio returns to a broader structure for whatever comes next.

For players, the arithmetic is simpler. At $69.99 for the Standard Edition and $79.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition, with a 79.36 GB preload and a day-one patch that adds Photo Mode, Marvel's Wolverine asks for full price and delivers a 10 to 15 hour campaign that most critics describe as solid rather than essential. New Game+ and mission replays at launch are real value, but they do not change the aggregate.

Next Up

Next up is the commercial test. Review scores are one input and launch-week sales are another, and the simultaneous global release at 12 AM ET on September 15, with no early-access window, puts every player on the same footing from day one. Beebom's live countdown confirmed the game was live in the US on the PS5, and the days that follow will show whether a 78 aggregate suppresses adoption or whether the Wolverine name and Insomniac's track record carry it regardless.

Beyond launch, attention shifts to post-release support: how the day-one Photo Mode patch and bug fixes are received, whether Insomniac adds content that addresses the scope complaints, and how Sony positions its next first-party exclusive given that the two previous benchmarks sit at 94 and 90. For now the headline is written in the aggregate: the lowest-rated PlayStation Studios game of the PS5 era, from a studio whose previous Marvel releases all cleared 85.