Wolverine shows brand beats reviews, but the sales story is far from over

Do reviews still matter when the brand on the box is big enough? Marvel's Wolverine is the latest evidence that, for a certain kind of blockbuster, the answer is "less than critics would like." The more interesting question is whether that is enough to pay for a very expensive bet.

Here is what happened. Insomniac's game launched September 15 with a Metacritic score of 77, according to Shattered, the lowest for an Insomniac superhero game since the studio's partnership with Sony began in 2018 (an earlier snapshot, taken days before launch, had it at 78). Even so, it sold quickly: Alinea Analytics estimated 1.9 million copies and $130M in its first three days, and Ampere Analytics put September sales at about 2.16 million.

The brand did the selling, and the reviews barely dented it

Look at the early numbers. Of those 1.9 million copies, 1 million were pre-launch digital pre-orders. That detail matters: a huge slice of the audience had decided before the game was even out. Alinea's own data shows buyers are overwhelmingly superhero-game diehards, with 82% having played the original Spider-Man. Those people aren't reading a 77 and changing their minds. They're buying the next Marvel game from the studio they trust.

We'd go further: the online "discourse" around handholding and linearity is a loud, enthusiast-shaped problem, and the sales audience looks different. Alinea itself makes that point, noting that many buyers aren't the people arguing about it. Our reading is that the 77 hurts something else: the tail. Kotaku, summarizing Alinea's data, says it's unclear what the long-term tail will be, and GamesRadar's verdict, quoted by Shattered, was that the game is "never a bad experience, just an underwhelming one." In our view, underwhelming games tend to sell on name alone at launch and then fade.

"Hit" depends on a budget Sony hasn't shown us

Let's not crown it yet. Ampere's figure makes Wolverine only the second-best PS5 seller of September, behind EA Sports FC 27, as Push Square reports. The same piece notes reports that development cost up to $300 million, licensing fee included. If that figure is right, a strong launch is the start of a payback story, not the end of one. Sony's silence on milestones is also worth watching, though Push Square rightly points out that PlayStation usually saves figures for earnings calls. We'll probably know more in November.

Our view: the sales suggest Sony can still launch a big game, but they don't prove the model is healthy. A game that needs a mega-brand and a pricey license, and reportedly a budget of up to $300 million, to post good-not-great reviews looks like a fragile template. Spider-Man 2 sold 10 million copies in just over 100 days, per Shattered, and nobody should expect Wolverine to follow that path. There are mitigating factors, such as holiday gifting and a possible halo from Marvel's X-Men push, but those are forecasts, not facts.

The PS5 audience is quietly doing a lot of the work

It's worth remembering where this game lives. Wolverine is a PS5 exclusive with no PC release announced, and Kotaku calls roughly 1.9 million sales in three days strong for an exclusive. IGN's coverage of Ampere data also shows how much the PlayStation audience matters: EA Sports FC 27 sold close to 5 million copies on PS5 and 1.65 million on Xbox, a gap IGN attributes to the difference in install base.

That is a reminder that a blockbuster's fate is never only about the game. Wolverine gets to be a divisive game with a big launch partly because it lands on a very large console audience that already likes Marvel, and that is an advantage few rivals can match. Whether that audience keeps buying once the diehards are done is the open question, and it is the one Sony will have to answer in its November report.

Verdict

If you're a player, ignore the noise on both sides. The sales don't make Wolverine a better game, and the 77 doesn't make it a bad one; the reviews Shattered quotes single out the combat as its strength, so start there. If you're Sony, take the win but be wary of reading it as proof that brand power can paper over lukewarm craft indefinitely. The real test is not launch week; it's whether this game earns back its cost by the holidays and beyond.