Sonys 18rated Wolverine game from the Spider-Man studio

[Rebecca40]

BBC Newsbeat put out a review of Marvel's Wolverine and the framing throughout is essentially whether Sony made the right call going full 18 rated with blood, gore, and violence rather than keeping things family friendly like the Spider-Man games from the same studio. Insomniac built this one too, and their Spider-Man titles have apparently sold around 50 million copies, so there was clearly a lot riding on this being a similarly big commercial swing. The article frames the rating choice as a genuine gamble rather than an obvious decision, which is a fair way to look at it given how different the tone is from their previous work.

The comparison to Deadpool and Wolverine at the box office is doing a lot of work in the piece to justify why this gamble might actually pay off. That film made 205 million dollars opening weekend, the best ever opening for an R rated movie, and ultimately grossed 1.3 billion dollars worldwide. If an R rated superhero film can pull numbers like that, the argument goes, then an 18 rated game featuring the same character might have a bigger built in audience than people initially assumed going in.

On the actual gameplay side, the review praises the traversal and movement mechanics specifically, describing leaping between buildings as feeling excellent to control. That is notable since traversal was one of the standout elements that made the Spider-Man games so beloved in the first place, so carrying that quality forward into a very different tonal register is a meaningful signal about production quality. The reviewer does note some reservations though, particularly around cutscene heavy sequences interrupting actual gameplay more often than they would prefer.

Liam McIntyre voicing Wolverine gets a direct quote in the piece where he talks about being proud of how audiences are responding to the story and performances. That kind of actor commentary alongside a critical review is a nice touch since it gives some insight into how the people actually making the game feel about the final product rather than just marketing talking points

PlayStation gambles with 18-rated Wolverine game - does it pay off?www.bbc.co.uk