Gaming
Wolverine Landed at 78 on Metacritic, and the Split Reviews Tell the Real Story
Marvel's Wolverine launched on September 15 as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, and the reviews have produced one of the most interesting scoreboards of the year. The game sits at 78 on Metacritic across more than 110 critics, with an OpenCritic average around 80. For most studios that would be a triumph. For Insomniac, the makers of three Spider-Man games that scored 87, 85, and 90, it is the studio's lowest rated original release since 2016's Song of the Deep.
The mainstream verdict clustered with unusual tightness. IGN's Simon Cardy gave the game 6 out of 10, praising Liam McIntyre's portrayal of Logan while observing that the combat wears thin well before its conclusion. GameSpot, GamesRadar, and VGC filed matching 6s. The recurring critique: Logan's claws and parries toolkit is narrower than Spider-Man's web slinging arsenal, and the level design gives it limited room to evolve across a 15 to 20 hour campaign. Giant Bomb went further with a 5, Polygon called it the biggest disappointment of the PS5 era, and Skill Up declined to recommend it at all.
The enthusiast press saw a different game. Push Square and Destructoid awarded 8s, Game Informer gave 8.5, and Hardcore Gamer handed out a perfect 100. The praise centered on the brutal, fast paced combat, spectacular action sequences, the visual presentation, and Insomniac's take on Logan himself. Between the two camps, the split is the story: mainstream outlets grouped near 6, enthusiast sites near 9, with the middle of the scale nearly empty.
The context around the launch adds to the stakes. Sony ships few AAA single player games a year, and Wolverine arrives in a year when Bungie's Marathon drew mixed reactions and the company parted ways with Kojima Productions' Physint. The standard edition is priced at $69.99, with a deluxe edition at $79.99, both for PlayStation 5. The aggregate score also reflects the weight of the big mainstream outlets: when IGN, GameSpot, GamesRadar, VGC, and Giant Bomb all land between 5 and 6, the average absorbs the enthusiast 8s and 9s and settles in the high 70s.
For players, the divided reception is genuinely useful information. The mainstream reviews describe a leaner, more linear Insomniac game with combat that thrills early and repeats late; the enthusiast reviews describe the most viscerally satisfying superhero combat the studio has made. A 78 that sparks this much conversation is doing more work than a quiet 85 ever could. The claws are out, the debate is on, and players get to decide which camp they belong to.
Sources
New to crypto? Read the crypto glossary, browse frequent questions, read our story, or explore the story archive.