Well, this one stings. Reviews for Marvel's Wolverine went live and here are the numbers: a 77 on Metacritic, with OpenCritic sitting at 81. Forbes has the breakdown, and the short version is the score came in lower than Sony and Insomniac needed.

Think about the run this studio has been on. Spider-Man, Miles Morales, Spider-Man 2, then the Wolverine reveal that had everyone hyped the second that blurry bar-fight trailer dropped. Insomniac has been one of Sony's most reliable studios this whole generation. So when a game from them comes in soft on Metacritic, people notice. Rightfully so, honestly.

I haven't sunk teeth into the full reviews yet (pun absolutely intended), but the pattern forming from early takes sounds familiar: repetitive combat, a story that doesn't quite stick the landing. For a studio whose whole brand has been narrative and character work, that's a rough combo. Anyone who's cried during a Spider-Man finale knows what these folks are capable of when everything clicks.

And the timing could not be worse. The fall release schedule is packed, and a middling score for a PlayStation exclusive landing in the middle of it is a real marketing problem. Word of mouth carries everything in a window this crowded, and "it's fine" just doesn't travel the way "it's incredible" does.

To be clear, none of this means the game is bad. Plenty of games in that score range have carried communities for years, and a Wolverine power fantasy could still be a genuinely good time on a Friday night with a pizza. But exclusives live and die by the narrative around them, and "not as high as it needs to be" is a tough headline to shake in launch week.

I keep thinking about the devs here too. This is a team that poured years into a character people care deeply about, dropped it into a brutal release window, and now gets to read the discourse. If you're playing it this weekend and loving it, say so loudly. Good community energy has rescued shakier launches than this.

Are you picking it up anyway, or does the score have you waiting for a sale? My Discord is already split down the middle on it.