Marvel’s Wolverine Releases To High Player Score After Mixed Reviews

This week, Insomniac Games released their anticipated new superhero game, Marvel’s Wolverine. The developer, known most recently for their Spider-Man adventures, continues this tradition with Marvel heroes, this time from the X-Men world: Wolverine. Last week, Marvel’s Wolverine’s reviews came out to mixed scores, with a total of 77 on sites like Metacritic.

This is by no means a bad score, but definitely lower than the team’s previous projects. Many critics highlighted repetitive combat, weak storytelling, and the simplicity of the gameplay in comparison to other games such as Marvel’s Spider-Man. However, players and their scores are telling a different story.

Released today exclusively for the PlayStation 5, Marvel’s Wolverine seems to be getting higher scores from players than from critics. In the PlayStation Store, the game’s score is at 4.84 (out of 5 stars), with a total of 9000 ratings as of now. Players on social media have taken to voice their opinions as well, with some praising the game’s combat: “The combat has been so much fun so far and the gruesomeness of it makes it soooo satisfying!!”

However, this is not the first time that scores from PlayStation Store players are different and higher than the critics’. Another recent example is Beast of Reincarnation; while here at GameObserver it got a high score, it sits at a 71 on Metacritic. Similarly to Wolverine, Beast of Reincarnation in the PlayStation Store has a 4-star rating. Maybe this difference is due to the fact of a difference in perspectives when playing a game as a reviewer looking to evaluate a piece of art, or as a player simply to have fun. Both are valid and needed perspectives.