Marvel's Wolverine Reviews: 77 on Metacritic and What It Means for Insomniac's X-Men Trilogy

At a Glance

Review embargoes lifted September 10, 2026. Marvel's Wolverine is Insomniac's first X-Men project and part of Sony's broader push to expand its Marvel gaming universe beyond the Spider-Man franchise.

Sources: tbreak — Wolverine Metacritic 77 report (Sep 12, 2026) · Comic Basics — Review score analysis (Sep 10, 2026)

The Scores

The 77 aggregate on Metacritic comes from a wide spread: large editorial outlets clustered around 6/10, while smaller international publications pushed the average up with 9s and 10s. The result is a game that is "generally favorable" by Metacritic's own definitions but visibly divided in the press.

The Spider-Man Shadow

Insomniac's track record set the bar for this game higher than for almost any other studio:

A 77 would be a strong result from most developers. From Insomniac following Spider-Man 2's 90, it reads differently. It also puts Wolverine below every other PlayStation Studios PS5 release to date — including Sackboy: A Big Adventure at 79 and well behind God of War Ragnarök's 94.

What Critics Liked

Visual craft

Every review acknowledged Insomniac's technical excellence. VGC described Wolverine's character model as "best-in-class" and praised the level design across Tokyo, Madripoor, and the game's Canadian homebase. The studio redirected the same engine that built Spider-Man's open-world New York into more controlled, densely detailed linear levels — and the graphical payoff is clear.

Logan's character and the story's emotional core

Lead actor Liam McIntyre's performance earned widespread praise for presenting a comic-book-rooted Wolverine rather than imitating any prior film portrayal. TheGamer's George Foster was among the more enthusiastic voices:

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"Marvel's Wolverine gets its claws in deep with a memorable, emotional, and high-stakes story, wonderful interpretations of Logan, Jean, and the rest of the cast, and brutally satisfying combat that distils the core of the character down to every snikt and claw pop." — TheGamer, George Foster (8/10)

Wccftech's Alessio Palumbo added:

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"Marvel's Wolverine is a very different game from Insomniac's Spider-Man adaptations, but it shows the developer really understands this hero, too." — Wccftech, Alessio Palumbo (8.5/10)

What Critics Criticized

Combat that never evolves

The most consistent complaint across outlets is that the core hack-and-slash loop barely changes across the full runtime. VGC's Jordan Middler wrote that enemies are "repetitive" and feel identical regardless of cosmetic changes, and that there is "never much reason to vary your approach" because Logan's claws outclass everything. The rage system — build a meter and enter an empowered state — draws comparisons to God of War's Spartan Rage, but reviewers noted even that mechanic rarely demands strategic thinking.

Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio summarized the structural problem sharply:

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"I'm left feeling like Marvel's Wolverine was born from a directive to make a game like God of War, rather than to make a Wolverine game. Logan was just angry enough to pass the Kratos audition." — Polygon, Giovanni Colantonio

Linearity and pacing friction

The shift away from open-world design is explicitly a feature — Insomniac stripped out RPG busywork in favor of a focused 15-to-18-hour experience closer to Uncharted or early God of War. Most critics accepted that tradeoff, but the game's habit of forcibly guiding players through obvious objectives, and the frequency of walk-and-talk traversal segments, were noted as friction points.

Kotaku's Kenneth Shepard offered a characteristically measured take, calling the game "refreshingly straightforward…mostly" before adding that outside of combat, "Logan's claws and nose are about all you've got."

Story Setup and X-Men Universe Ambitions

The game is set before the X-Men exist as a public institution. Logan operates with Team X — Sabretooth, Mystique, and others — against Bolivar Trask, who has developed machines capable of detecting mutants. The story spans Canada, Tokyo, and Madripoor while building Logan and Jean Grey's relationship as a central thread.

Insomniac has framed this explicitly as the first entry in a planned X-Men trilogy. The same Insomniac roadmap leaked in 2023's security breach that revealed multiple Spider-Man games also outlined a broader X-Men arc, and Sony has since confirmed the licensing structure for the project. The studio is betting that Wolverine does for the X-Men universe what the original Spider-Man did for its franchise — establish the world, then expand it.

Whether a 77 Metacritic supports that ambition is the real question after this launch week.

Should You Buy It?

A 77 is not a warning sign. It is a signal that the Insomniac name and the Wolverine licence have not yet produced the automatic critical hit the Spider-Man trilogy established. The game's best moments — its performances, visuals, and emotional story beats — are genuinely strong. Its weakest moments make a $70 game feel like it is coasting on spectacle.

For the broader X-Men trilogy, this is a soft start. Insomniac's Spider-Man origin was also the simplest entry in what became an acclaimed franchise. Whether Wolverine 2 gets the Miles Morales glow-up or stagnates will answer the more interesting question.

Further Reading

• ▶VGC full review
• ▶Kotaku full review
• ▶Polygon full review
• ▶The Guardian full review