The Best There Is? Marvel's Wolverine Launch Weekend Reviews and Records

BURBANK, Calif. — Logan has officially been unleashed.

After years of anticipation, Marvel's Wolverine launched globally as a PlayStation 5 exclusive on September 15, 2026. Developed by Insomniac Games, the studio responsible for the critically acclaimed Spider-Man series, the game was poised to be Sony's biggest system-seller of the year.

However, as the dust settles on its opening weekend, the reception has proven to be much more complicated than anticipated. While the game's brutal, cinematic combat is drawing praise, the overall critical consensus paints a picture of a game that falls just short of the studio's incredibly high standards.

Here is a breakdown of the reviews, the records broken, and how the game is performing at launch. For our earlier hands-on coverage, see the Wolverine hands-on preview.

A Broken Streak | The Metacritic Drop

For nearly a decade, Insomniac Games has been a critical darling for PlayStation. Unfortunately, Wolverine has officially broken the studio's pristine streak of superhero hits.

As of launch weekend, Marvel's Wolverine sits at a 77 out of 100 on Metacritic (based on over 120 critic reviews). This score makes it the lowest-reviewed Marvel title Insomniac has produced since partnering with Sony in 2018, falling significantly below Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (90), Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (88), the original Spider-Man (87), and Miles Morales (85).

The review spread is highly polarized. Outlets like COGconnected awarded the game a perfect 10/10, calling it "a tight, focused experience that never lets up," while Game Informer praised its "unrelenting ride" with an 8.5/10. Conversely, major publications like IGN and GameSpot both handed the game surprisingly low 6/10 scores.

According to critics, the 15-hour campaign features excellent voice acting, incredible graphics, and visceral, satisfying combat. However, the lower scores cite a lack of gameplay variety, repetitive level design, an overabundance of quick-time events (QTEs), and combat encounters that show their hand too early in the game.

First Weekend Sales | Market Impact

Despite the mixed critical reception, Marvel's Wolverine is still expected to be a commercial juggernaut, though it may not shatter the explosive records set by its web-slinging predecessors.

The game launched worldwide at $69.99 for the standard edition and $79.99 for the Digital Deluxe version. With no early-access window offered, millions of players jumped in simultaneously at midnight. While Sony has not yet released official first-weekend sales figures, analysts predict that the game will sell millions of copies out of the gate, driven heavily by the strength of the X-Men brand and the massive installed base of PS5 owners.

However, industry insiders note that the 77 Metacritic score may complicate Sony's pitch moving forward. As the publisher continues to lean on high-priced, first-party single-player exclusives to justify its hardware, a "good but not great" release from their marquee studio is raising questions about genre fatigue.

For now, players are diving headfirst into the blood-soaked, feral action. While it may not reinvent the action genre, it undoubtedly delivers the most violent and cinematic Wolverine experience ever put to code.