Reviews of Marvel's Wolverine have landed to a lukewarm reception, with the Insomniac Games title sitting at a middling 78 on Metacritic, making it unlikely to earn a Game of the Year nomination at The Game Awards. This matters because it would end an 11-year streak in which Sony has had at least one game nominated for GOTY every year since the awards began in 2014, a run unmatched by any other publisher.

Critics praised little beyond combat, with Polygon calling it "the biggest disappointment of the PS5 era," and no game has ever been nominated for GOTY with a Metacritic score below 80. Sony has won the award three times (God of War in 2018, The Last of Us Part 2 in 2020, and Astro Bot in 2024) from 14 nominations, but with Wolverine seemingly out of contention, its best remaining hope for a 2026 nod is Housemarque's Saros, which holds a stronger 87 Metacritic score but may be too niche for the GOTY jury.