The Spider-Man many fans most love is the one from the ’70s, the college student juggling jobs, school, relationships, friends, and, oh yeah, being your friendly neighborhood arthropod-themed superhero. And the new video game, coming exclusively to the PS4, throws back to that era with a few revisions.
When we say “throws back,” we mean it. This is a separate continuity from either the comics or the movies, starting fresh so that Insomniac, the development team, can have fun with the property. Wilson Fisk is the primary antagonist, we see the Shocker in a brief moment, and Peter is intimately tied to New York City, fighting street crime and corrupt politicians. The new villain, a mayoral candidate who turns into a photo-negative version of himself, feels like an idea straight from the mind of Steve Ditko or John Romita. We even see the spider-sense in action, albeit in a far different way from the comics.
We don’t see much gameplay in this trailer, but we see enough to get a sense that you’ll be fighting the way a spider should, acrobatically and with energy. Again, the feel of a Romita action sequence is strong here, and, most intriguingly, we see Miles Morales, a fellow Spider-Man in the comics, as an acquaintance of Peter’s. Could there be two-player Spidey involved? We’ll find out sometime in the near future as we still don’t have a release date, sadly.