Insomniac Games spent 22 years building shooters and platformers before it took on its first licensed property. The result, Marvel’s Spider-Man, arrived on PlayStation 4 in 2018. This is the rare licensed game that treats its source as a story rather than a marketing asset.
Trailer, via PlayStation.
Peter Parker at 23
Peter Parker is in his eighth year of crime-fighting. He is 23, a college graduate and research assistant, and he is not good at being two people at once. Insomniac builds the whole campaign on that split. Peter fights crime as Spider-Man, then hands the controller to Mary Jane Watson for stealth sequences and to Miles Morales at key points in the story.
Yuri Lowenthal voices Peter. Laura Bailey plays Mary Jane, his ex-girlfriend and a Daily Bugle reporter.
Swinging Through Manhattan
Traversal is the best thing here. Spider-Man moves by jumping, firing webs between buildings, running along walls and vaulting obstacles. Webs need physical objects to attach to. Release at the right point and you gain height or speed. The game also offers a fast travel system built on the New York City Subway, though using it feels like a small defeat.
Physical objects are required to attach webs to for swinging, and momentum and speed of the swing can be controlled by releasing the web at specific points to gain height or move more quickly.
Combat runs on three buttons: dodge, strike, web. Webbing sticks enemies to nearby objects and removes them from the fight. Throw a manhole cover, a grenade, or an enemy already wrapped in webs. Knock a foe off a roof and the game cocoons him to a wall instead of killing him. Consecutive hits build Focus, which heals Spider-Man or, when full, triggers a finishing move that ends an enemy instantly. A white spider-sense icon warns of incoming attacks. Dodge at the last moment and he counters.
Mister Negative and the Inner Demons
The plot starts with Spider-Man beating Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, which leaves a power vacuum. A gang called the Inner Demons moves in, hunting for something called Devil’s Breath. The man behind them is Mister Negative, who can corrupt people through his touch.
The supporting cast is deep: Aunt May at the F.E.A.S.T. shelter, Martin Li, Dr. Otto Octavius, NYPD captain Yuri Watanabe, Mayor Norman Osborn, Silver Sable. Villains include Electro, Rhino, Scorpion, Vulture and Shocker.
The City Is the Co-Star
Manhattan is the setting, fictionalized and modern, and it holds up as a sandbox. Side missions and collectibles unlock suits and gadgets. The borough is not decoration. It is the reason the swinging works.
A Licensed Game That Earned It
Insomniac was given the choice of using any character. The studio’s answer was to make Peter’s civilian life as playable as his costumed one, and to let the webs obey physics instead of animation.
The result is a game that understands why Spider-Man is interesting: he is tired, he is stretched thin, and he still shows up. The seams show in places. Stealth sections with Mary Jane slow the pace, and the open-world checklist is familiar. Neither is enough to matter.
Marvel’s Spider-Man is the definitive version of this character in a game. IGDB’s critic aggregate, drawn from 16 outlets, puts it at 9.0/10.
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