Marvel's Wolverine

Insomniac Games needs no introduction on these pages. This is the team that made Ratchet & Clank and Spyro, then turned into PlayStation's most trusted studio with three Spider-Man games. The studio that got everyone hooked on swinging over New York at the end of a web has now picked up the claws. Marvel's Wolverine came out on 15 September 2026, for PS5 only. No PS4 version, and no PC version either. So this month we can't look at Steam reviews; we'll hear the players out through the user scores on Metacritic and the patch notes. Nobody played the game for this issue. We're building the verdict on the game's own systems, its patches and what players have told us. Let's not drag this out. Here we go.

What's our game about?

Logan goes chasing his past. The road runs from Madripoor to Canada, and from there to Tokyo. Up against him is The Hand, and the big bad is Deathstrike. Jean Grey is in the story too. Logan is voiced by Liam McIntyre, Jean by Krizia Bajos. The music is David Fleming's, and the narrative director is Walt Williams. Williams also wrote a digital prequel comic about Team X (you can read it on Marvel Unlimited). Friends who are curious about the story can take a look at it before the game.

Now let's get to the important bit. This is not an open-world game. Those of you expecting to roam a city freely like in the Spider-Man games, don't get your hearts broken just yet: Wolverine is a single-player, story-driven action game that moves forward chapter by chapter. Ehh, we all know Wolverine doesn't shoot webs anyway.

When the claws do the talking

The combat system has three parts. Techniques are your attack repertoire. Adaptations are the part where you build Logan up over the course of the game. Rage, as the name tells you, is the mechanic that lets Logan off the leash once it fills up. It uses the DualSense's vibration and trigger resistance, and there's Tempest 3D Audio support. It offers several difficulty settings and a wide accessibility menu. It's rated M by the ESRB, so there's plenty of blood and plenty of brutality. Don't play it next to your little brothers and sisters.

Most critics agree on exactly this point: the combat is the game's strongest side. The visuals and presentation get praise too. Insomniac's technical mastery shows itself here as well. On PS5 Pro the image is improved with PSSR. On a regular PS5, patch v1.002 made QSSR (Quick Spectral Super Resolution, the method that scales the image up from a lower resolution) the default.

But...

Next to the praise there's a long "but" list. What critics and players complain about most is the way the game grabs you by the hand and drags you along. The structure is linear and tied to the script. Freedom of movement is limited. The story has its ups and downs. And then there's the $70 price, which keeps getting mentioned alongside the game's length, and that comparison does the game no favours.

"What are Scents?" you'll ask. It's the visual trail that shows Logan's sense of smell and leads you to the next point in the story. Players made fun of this trail no end, because it became the very symbol of the "hand-holding" complaint we listed above. Insomniac didn't ignore it: the v1.002.001 patch, which arrived around 6 October, added an option to switch the trail display off. The same patch also brought crash and bug fixes. The first patch had already touched the interface, Photo Mode, accessibility, localisation, progression and crash problems. I have to say one thing though: we couldn't find these patch notes on Insomniac's own page; we know the change lists from second-hand sources that pass them along.

What do the numbers say?

On Metacritic the critic average is 75, from about 150 reviews. 62 percent of the reviews are positive, 37 percent mixed, and there's only one negative. In launch week that number was around 77–78, so it has slipped a little over time. The individual scores are pretty far apart: Push Square gave it 8/10, and Game Informer reportedly gave it 8.5. IGN, GameSpot and Eurogamer are reported to have given it 6/10 (those three we know from round-ups, not from the reviews themselves). Push Square counted this game among the lowest-scoring first-party games of the PS5 generation. For Insomniac, that's no small thing to hear.

Players are even more split. The Metacritic user score is 6.7, from about 5,800 votes. 59 percent positive, 28 percent negative. So roughly one player in four walked away unhappy.

For whom, and for how much?

The standard edition is $69.99, both digital and disc. The Digital Deluxe is $79.99, and the upgrade from standard is $10. The Deluxe pack has special suits, claws and extra Technique Points. The number of suits isn't the same everywhere on the official page, though; the store listing and the FAQ give different figures. Read carefully what you're getting before you hand over any money. As a pre-order bonus, the Classic Brown suit and the Reflective Claws unlocked early. A Wolverine suit from MARVEL Tōkon: Fighting Souls also unlocks from day one by progressing in the game. And for the collector nuts there's a $649.99 limited-run Wolverine PS5 Digital Edition bundle.

Those who wandered the city of Spider-Man 2 for months will find a narrow corridor here.

Now let's get to the verdict. If you ask me, Wolverine's problem isn't that it's a bad game, it's that it doesn't give you the freedom you expect from an Insomniac game. The combat is solid, the presentation is shiny, and the technical side plus the fixes that came with the patches show the studio takes its work seriously. That's why I won't drop the score below 70. But the structure that keeps steering you, the short length and the full price on top of it won't let me push it up to 80. Those who wandered the city of Spider-Man 2 for months will find a narrow corridor here. Those who love smash-and-slash, bloody, cinematic action will be happy.

My advice is this: if you're a Wolverine fan and you're coming for the fighting, buy it, you won't regret it. If you're expecting another Spider-Man, though, wait for the first big sale. Those of you who finish the game, don't forget to write and tell me what you found. Wishing you all days full of claws.

Insomniac Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment · PS5 only · $69.99