We’ve seen far too many Spider-Man origin stories. From the Toby Maguire film trilogy to the illfated Andrew Garfield set, from the myriad animated series to endless runs of comic books. We all know what happens. Insomniac Games isn’t interested in retreading that ground. “We’re not telling an origin story,” the developer’s James Stevenson tells us as he jumps from building-to-building in the new PS4 game, demonstrating the new physics-based traversal mechanic. “Our story starts with a 23-year old Peter Parker, who is graduating college and has a job working in a laboratory. Think of him as an athlete in his prime. That’s where you pick up the game.”
The game seems to accelerate pretty quickly, too: “Very early on, you defeat Wilson Fisk – Kingpin,” Stevenson continues. “Spider- Man gets cocky, thinks he has the city under control, but when you get rid of the man at the top, someone else always turns up to take their place…” Stevenson is referring
to Martin Li – Mr Negative. A fairly obscure villain to draw on, sure, but a fascinating one nonetheless. But if you were hoping for Spider-Man’s classic nemeses too, don’t worry – Stevenson confirmed these will not be the only two villains in the game.
Insomniac is jumping in at the deep end, then: by the time you start playing, Spider- Man will already be well established as the hero of New York City; you start with access to a whole arsenal of gadgetry, acrobatic abilities, fancy combat moves. There’ll be RPG systems in place to progress these
foundations of gameplay, but from the off you’ll be able to control a Spider-Man that’ll feel familiar to anyone with even a passing interest in the character.
It’s not all about the man in the mask, though. Insomniac wants to make that clear. Peter Parker is as much of a character in this as the eponymous vigilante, and Stevenson seemed to choose his words very intentionally when he told us ‘you’ll be playing as both Peter Parker and Spider-Man’.
“We think the best Spider-Man video game stories are told when [the worlds of Parker and Spider- Man] collide,” he explains. “In this game – which is a brand new universe, by the way – Peter Parker has trouble paying his bills, balancing his work and just being Spider-Man. Peter’s love life, too, is always a part of any Spider-Man story so that will naturally be a part of our game, too.”
It’s refreshing to see Insomniac tackle that side of Peter from a game’s perspective – you can draw many comparisons to Rocksteady’s Arkham games when you see Spider-Man in action (and you might even go as far as to call the melee derivative), but Insomniac is doing something the DC franchise never did: getting to know the man in the middle of the web. Spider-Man’s gadgetry and athletic moveset are more stylish than Batman’s rigid animations and abilities, too – the flexibility with which Spider-Man fights and traverses are best in class as far as superhero games go. And that mobility is going to be necessary, as the playable area of the game is huge. “You can free roam around all of Manhattan,” Stevenson explains as he busts through a falling sign in a white-knuckle helicopter chase. “The best way to think about it is that it’s four-to-six times the size of the Sunset Overdrive map. Spider-Man is the biggest game we’ve ever made.”
Of course, bigger doesn’t always mean better, but Insomniac has a proven record when it comes to open world games, and aside from the empowering combat system and loaded story, a new Spider-Man game with momentum-based web-swinging traversal is what fans have been hankering for since 2004 – and from what we’ve seen so far, Insomniac looks set to deliver it.
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