Marvel's Wolverine Is Out Tomorrow on PS5 at $69.99, With New Game Plus on Day One, PS5 Pro Support and Reviews Landing in the High 70s

The wait that started with that first teaser years ago ends tomorrow. Marvel's Wolverine unlocks on September 15, exclusively on PlayStation 5, at $69.99 for the Standard Edition and $79.99 for the Digital Deluxe Edition. It is Insomniac's first Marvel game that is not about Spider-Man, it carries an M rating for blood, gore and strong language, and Sony lists it as PS5 Pro Enhanced with PSSR handling image quality on the newer console.

We covered the Comic-Con story trailer in July, and the pitch has not changed since: Logan rejoins Team X, the black ops unit he walked away from years ago, to track down kidnapped mutants and stop Bolivar Trask. Jean Grey is at his side, Lady Deathstrike, Omega Red and the Hand are in his way, and the whole thing is deliberately not open world. It is a single player, narrative driven action adventure that moves from location to location instead of handing you a map.

Video: PlayStation on YouTube

How the claws actually work

Insomniac laid out the combat in a long post on the PlayStation Blog at the end of August, and it is built around three interlocking systems. Techniques are the moves you learn as you progress, and four Special Techniques, rechargeable abilities such as Tornado Spin, Knee Breaker and Spiral Strike, can be equipped at once. Adaptations are dozens of modifiers that change how Logan fights, from absorbing bullets to widening parry windows to making Rage more effective. Rage itself is a three tiered meter that trades survivability for fury, which is the mechanical version of the berserker Wolverine everyone expects from the character.

Everything around the campaign is unusually generous for a launch. New Game Plus ships on day one with exclusive Techniques and a higher level cap, Mission Replay lets you revisit story segments, and Nightmare Challenges test combat and traversal behind Nightmare Doors scattered through the levels. Photo Mode lands with a day one update. Collectible whisky bottles unlock Logan's memories along the way. Insomniac also counts more than 100 accessibility options, including High Contrast visuals, audio description, and separate toggles that tone down graphic violence and adult language for players who want the story without the mess.

Editions, bonuses and what the reviews say

Pre-ordering either edition gets you an early unlock of the Classic Brown suit and the Reflective Claws, one Technique Point and four PlayStation avatars. The Digital Deluxe Edition adds five suits, Incredible, Savage, Night Hunter, New Leather and Age of Apocalypse, plus five claw styles and three more Technique Points, and Standard buyers can upgrade later for $10. There is also a crossover we mentioned when Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls launched: Tokon players unlock an exclusive suit in Wolverine at launch.

Reviews went live last Thursday. The aggregate on Metacritic sits at 77 from 115 critic reviews, labeled generally favorable, with 73 percent positive, 27 percent mixed and not a single negative score. The pattern in the write-ups is consistent: the combat, the performances and the presentation get strong marks, while the story and the variety of the level design keep it from the high 80s that Insomniac's Spider-Man games reached.

Our take

A 77 is not the triumphant number Sony wanted for its biggest first party release of the autumn, and the honest read is that this is a very good action game rather than a great one. That said, zero negative reviews out of 115 is a floor most launches would kill for, the day one feature set is complete instead of promised for later, and a focused Logan story with no open world padding is exactly what a lot of players have asked for since the teaser. If you own a PS5, it launches tomorrow. If you were on the fence, this is the rare case where waiting for the reviews was the right call, and they are now in.