Marvel’s Wolverine was the best-selling game in the United States in September, according to market research firm Circana, shrugging off weeks of memes, mixed reviews, and heated online debate to take the top spot on the monthly sales chart.
Circana analyst Mat Piscatella shared the September breakdown on Bluesky on October 22. The PS5 exclusive led full game dollar sales, a figure that covers physical copies and full game digital purchases, and it finished ahead of heavyweights like NBA 2K27 and EA Sports FC 27. It also debuted as the 11th best-selling game of 2026 so far, and it posted the highest launch-month dollar sales of any Sony-published title since Helldivers 2 in February 2024. That is a striking result for a game that only launched halfway through September, which means it outsold its competition with roughly half the selling window. Eight of September’s ten best-selling games were new releases.
September 2026: top 10 best-selling games in the US
- Marvel’s Wolverine (Sony)
- NBA 2K27 (Take-Two Interactive)
- EA Sports FC 27 (EA)
- Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave (Nintendo)
- The Blood of Dawnwalker (Bandai Namco)
- Wardogs (Team17)
- Onimusha: Way of the Sword (Capcom)
- Halloween: The Game (IllFonic)
- Ace Combat 8: Wings of Theve (Bandai Namco)
- Madden NFL 27 (EA)
The chart win lands after a rough month in the discourse. The game became a target on social media over its Scent Trail mechanic, which critics nicknamed the “fart trail” for the glowing path it paints through levels. Insomniac later reduced the trails’ opacity in an update, and added a toggle so players can turn the hint down themselves. The studio also had to clarify comments about the relationship between Logan and Sabretooth, confirming the pair are not romantically involved, and it faced criticism over a changed face model for Logan.
Players who actually bought the game told a different story. Marvel’s Wolverine holds a 4.83 out of 5 player rating on the PlayStation Store, with more than 92 percent of reviewers awarding it five stars. That lines up with the sales data: the online backlash never reached the majority of buyers. Reviews from the press were more divided, with outlets including GamesBeat pointing to a linear structure and repetitive combat as the game’s weakest spots.
The news was not limited to software. PlayStation 5 hardware dollar sales rose 43 percent in September, giving Sony its highest hardware dollar share in a month since May 2025, a bump Circana ties to the game’s launch window. Ampere Analysis separately estimated that Marvel’s Wolverine sold about 2.16 million copies on PS5 during September, which would make it the console’s second best-selling game that month behind EA Sports FC 27 on that tracker’s numbers. Sony has not commented on the game’s total sales. The game has also been in the headlines for other reasons this month, from PC players getting it running at 20 FPS through a PS5 emulator to the debate over its visual effects.
