Marvel’s Wolverine Gets One Last Look Before Launch, and Jin Sakai Sneaks Back In

Most State of Play broadcasts live or die on one question. Is there anything here you'll still be thinking about tomorrow? Sony's September showcase had two answers, and both were games people have been circling on the calendar for a while. Marvel's Wolverine got its send-off before it lands on September 15, and Ghost of Yotei pulled off a reunion plenty of players have wanted since 2020.

Neither was a surprise announcement, exactly, and that's the point. This was the confident half of a State of Play, the part where a company shows finished things that are close enough to touch. If you own a PS5 and you were waiting for a reason to care about the next few weeks, this gave you two.

Wolverine's last look before September 15

Insomniac locked in the September 15 date back in February, so the news here wasn't the date. It was the tone. This was the final big showing before Logan actually arrives, and the studio spent it on the things you can't fake in a teaser: the feel of the combat, the cast around him, a temple standoff that ran long enough to suggest they're proud of it.

Insomniac has earned some patience. Their Spider-Man games are the reason a lot of people bought the console, and Wolverine is a harder character to get right. He's supposed to hurt. The whole appeal is a man who heals fast enough to keep walking into things that should kill him, and a combat system built around that either feels great or feels like a mess. We'll know in two weeks, which is a rare thing to be able to say about a game this big.

Jin Sakai comes back in Ghost of Yotei

Ghost of Yotei got the loudest reaction of the night. Its October 1 update, Echoes of Sekigahara, makes Jin Sakai from Ghost of Tsushima a playable character in a new roguelike mode called Most Wanted, where you take bounties and fight through runs that reshuffle every time. He's not a costume or a photo-mode cameo. You play as him.

Sucker Punch could have shipped this as a quiet post-launch patch and most people would have shrugged. Instead they built a story expansion that jumps between present-day Ezo and flashbacks to the Battle of Sekigahara, then added a mode with real replay value and used Jin as the hook to pull Tsushima fans back in. It costs the studio nothing in goodwill and buys a lot. Current owners can grab the expansion for $15, or there's a $70 complete edition if you're starting fresh.

The rest of the show

Around those two, Sony filled the runtime with a mix of the near and the far. Capcom showed an expansion for Monster Hunter Wilds that's still a 2027 concern, so file that under good to know, check back later. 4A Games surfaced a new Metro built around a lone wanderer heading back underground, which is the register that series has always been best in. And Double Fine's Keeper, the wordless one about a walking lighthouse, made the jump to PS5 after about a year on Xbox and PC. None of these are why you tuned in. They're the reason a State of Play runs longer than ten minutes.

The surprise was the restraint. No mystery-box teaser for a game five years out, no sizzle reel pretending a logo is news. Two things you can play this month, a handful more on the horizon, and a release calendar that suddenly looks busier than it did an hour earlier. If you'd been telling yourself the fall was quiet, this is Sony correcting you.