Reviews for Marvel’s Wolverine have dropped, and it’s fair to say that many of them are a bit disappointing.
At the time of writing, Insomniac Games’ big budget action title sits at an eyebrow-raising 77 on Metacritic, based on just over 100 evaluations.
Now I should stress that a 77 is not a bad score, despite the growing sentiment that anything below an 80, or 8/10, is unworthy of your time. Even Metacritic itself states that a 77 is “generally favourable”.
But given the largely excellent track record of PlayStation Studios, that 77 looks surprisingly low.
For context, Wolverine is now counted amongst the lowest rated first-party Sony games of this console generation.
And by first-party, I mean major development outfits owned by Sony. The likes of Naughty Dog, Santa Monica Studio, Sucker Punch, and, of course, Insomniac Games.
To compare Wolverine with other first-party PS5 releases, we’ve got…
Again, this is only taking first-party studio titles into account. If we’re talking PS5 exclusives published by Sony, then games such as Destruction AllStars and God of War: Sons of Sparta all rank lower than Wolverine.
In any case, it’s a fairly steep drop-off for Insomniac. The Burbank-based outfit has gone from releasing Spider-Man 2 in 2023 — rated at a very impressive 90 — to giving us a 77-rated Wolverine four years later.
Indeed, the studio hadn’t crafted a game with a Metacritic score lower than 85 across the whole generation — and Insomniac’s been busy over the last seven years or so, delivering more titles than any other Sony-owned developer in that time.
Wolverine makes for an interesting outlier, then. And I’m left wondering how the game will end up being perceived in the future — especially once players have had their say.
For what it’s worth, our own reviewer Liam really enjoyed Wolverine, despite some pretty clear flaws. It got an 8/10 in our Marvel’s Wolverine PS5 review.
Did you think Wolverine would come out swinging a little harder than this? Don’t dull those claws in the comments section below.
Where did you expect Wolverine to land in terms of review scores? (1,136 votes)
91 and over6%Between 86 and 9030%Between 81 and 8538%80 and under26%
[source metacritic.com]
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Robert (or Rob if you’re lazy) is an assistant editor of Push Square, and has been a fan of PlayStation since the 90s, when Tekken 2 introduced him to the incredible world of video games. He still takes his fighting games seriously, but RPGs are his true passion. The Witcher, Persona, Dragon Quest, Mass Effect, Final Fantasy, Trails, Tales — he’s played ’em all. A little too much, some might say.