Marvel's Wolverine launches to mixed reviews, reigniting talk of a leaked Sony-Marvel deal
Marvel's Wolverine review scores have landed, and they're sitting lower than expected for an Insomniac game. Metacritic has the game around 78, landing in "generally favorable" territory, while OpenCritic shows a similar 79 average with a 75% recommend rate.
Those aren't bad numbers on their own, but they tell a different story when you line them up against Insomniac's other PS5 exclusives:
Spider-Man (2018): 87
Miles Morales (2020): 85
Spider-Man 2 (2023): 90
Wolverine (2026): 78
That makes Marvel's Wolverine the lowest-scoring first-party PS5 exclusive Insomniac has put out.
Fan sites and smaller outlets were kinder, some pushing scores into the 9 or 10 range, but the bigger publications were a lot more reserved.
IGN gave it a 6/10, writing that "just like its hero's adamantium core, Marvel's Wolverine is built of sturdy stuff – it just fails to layer something special atop its initially satisfying action, which wears thin well before the conclusion as a result." The review adds that the 15-hour campaign leans hard on its story, calling it "okay, just a step or two below Insomniac's other superhero efforts."
GameSpot also landed on 6/10, describing it as "a surprisingly average game let down by basic combat, a messy story, and the whelming feeling it could have all been a lot better."
GamesRadar matched that with another 6/10, noting there's "nothing outright wrong or bad about it" but that the game is ultimately "a barebones third-person action game executed in a no-frills way, with no real surprises."
Eurogamer scored it 3/5, calling the characterization "a bright spot in this otherwise underwhelming, old-school romp that reminds us how far action games have come."
VGC also gave it 3/5, saying it "fails to capture the spirit of the legendary character in the same way Insomniac did with Spider-Man" despite strong visuals.
Giant Bomb was the harshest of the bunch at 2.5/5, pointing to "momentary sparks of fun" that get "constantly dragged down by mediocre storytelling, poor pacing, and an underwhelming amount of player agency."
Common critique: combat starts strong then gets repetitive; linear “old-school” structure; story/character work better than the systems. Common praise: Liam McIntyre as Logan, violence/feel of the claws, production values.
Why is a 2023 leak suddenly relevant again?
Bad reviews have a way of dragging old news back into the spotlight, and that's exactly what's happening here. Back in December 2023, the ransomware group Rhysida breached Insomniac Games. Sony refused to pay the roughly $2 million ransom being demanded, so Rhysida dumped about 1.67 terabytes of data across 1.3 million files.
That dump included (via Kotaku):
Early Wolverine footage, concept art, plot/cast details, and even a bootable build
Internal roadmaps (Venom, Wolverine, Spider-Man 3, Ratchet, X-Men, etc.)
Employee personal data
A Sony–Marvel publishing/licensing agreement for a multi-game X-Men slate
That last document is what fans are buzzing around about most, as per that leaks doc:
Wolverine was planned as the first of several X-Men games (a solo game plus later X-Men projects, some with online/multiplayer components).
Each game had large allocated budgets (on the order of $120M development + $30M marketing in the leaked materials).
Most importantly. There was a performance clause: If any one of the X-Men games fails to sell at least 6 million units on PS5 + PC in its first year, either Sony or Marvel can terminate the deal.
Termination is not “free”:
If Sony/Insomniac terminate: they owe Marvel $9 million plus unpaid portions of guarantees.
If Marvel terminates: those fees are waived, but Insomniac can keep selling games already out.
Is 6 million units in a year realistic?
It’s a big challenge for a single-platform, mature-rated action game, but not impossible. Spider-Man (2018) and Spider-Man 2 both saw huge success, with Spider-Man 2 selling 10 million copies in just over 100 days. Wolverine, however, is a different story: it's darker, more violent, and less broadly appealing than the Spider-Man games. Plus, it’s launching as a PS5 exclusive, just like all three Insomniac Spider-Man titles, which means first-year sales will be limited to console only, with no PC release planned yet (and likely not, given Sony’s shift toward exclusivity for single-player games).
The release calendar isn't helping either. Control Resonant, Silent Hill: Townfall, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 4, and Phantom Blade Zero are all launching around the same window. Then GTA 6 drops in November, and that's likely to pull attention away from just about everything else in gaming for a while. Even early 2027 doesn't offer much room to breathe, with God of War: Luefey and Metro 2039 both scheduled for February.
So hitting 6 million in 12 months looks difficult but not impossible, especially if Sony pushes hard on bundling. Pairing Wolverine with PS5 consoles, DualSense controllers, Pulse headsets, or even Bravia TVs could help push those numbers closer to where they need to be.
It's worth remembering that none of this contract information has ever been officially confirmed by Sony or Marvel. It's all coming from leaked 2023 documents, and terms like these often get revised or renegotiated well before launch.
Marvel's Wolverine is set within the same continuity as their Spider-Man titles. It officially releases on September 15, 2026.
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