Marvel's Wolverine is rated M — and yes, there will be butts

Insomniac's Marvel's Wolverine has received its official ESRB rating ahead of its September 15 PS5 launch, and the board has a few things to flag beyond the obvious blood and claws.

The game lands at Mature 17+, with content descriptors covering Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language, and Partial Nudity. That last one is the talking point: the ESRB specifically notes that "a handful of sequences briefly depict a character's exposed buttocks." Whose buttocks, exactly, the board doesn't say — but given Wolverine's long cinematic history of losing his clothes at inconvenient moments, fans have their guesses. The full ESRB description also details players slashing, stabbing, and decapitating enemies with Wolverine's claws, rage modes that trigger slow-motion finishers, battlefields littered with dismembered limbs, and dialogue that references fentanyl by name. The words "f**k" and "sh*t" appear in the game. In-Game Purchases are also flagged.

Marvel's Wolverine is shaping up to be a sharp tonal departure from Insomniac's Spider-Man games — harder, bloodier, and clearly aimed at an older audience. The ESRB rating confirms what the trailers have been signaling: this is closer to the R-rated Logan end of the Wolverine spectrum than the family-friendly MCU version. Hugh Jackman's film portrayal of the character became quietly notorious for its recurring butt shots across X-Men Origins: Wolverine and X-Men: Days of Future Past, so Insomniac leaning into that tradition — intentionally or not — fits the character's legacy.

Marvel's Wolverine launches exclusively on PS5 on September 15.