Speed will thrill in Spider-man 2
Creators dish on powerhouse PS 5 release
The Playstation 5's headlining title for 2023 is Marvel's Spider-man 2, from developer Insomniac Games. Peter Parker and Miles Morales share top billing for the long-awaited sequel to the most successful Playstation 4 game of all time, with 20 million copies sold since its 2018 release.
Bryan Intihar, the game's creative director, and Ryan Smith, game director, revealed a few more details about the game. Here are the highlights.
1.
The map will be twice the size
While Manhattan returns, the sequel is adding Queens, Brooklyn and other boroughs.
“In terms of the size of the city, it's double the size compared to Spider-man 1,” Intihar said, “When you play in Queens, there's much more of a neighbourhood feel, smaller buildings, which is why the web wings work so well traversing in that area, where you can swing low to the ground if you want to, or you can fly through.”
2.
Co-op was never an option
“From Day 1, we always said we wanted to make a single-player experience,” Intihar said. “There's a lot of great co-op games out there, but we wanted to tell the experience of two spider heroes ...”
3.
The game is coming out this year — but there's no release date
“It's really just making sure we're really confident that when we announce the date, we're going to hit it ...” Intihar said.
4.
It taps into Playstation 5's horsepower
The Playstation 5 is about three years old, but rare is the video game made exclusively for the platform. The pandemic hobbled game development, and its effects still reverberate, with many studios developing games for the 10-year-old Playstation 4, and not designed to take full use of the PS5'S fast memory.
Spider-man 2 is built from the ground up for the newer console. “As a player, you can build up more speed, you can use the wings and wind tunnels to go even faster, and that helps enable things like crossing the river into the new boroughs we built. All of those things are part of the PS5 experience,” said Smith.
The speedy loading also helps with the new feature to switch perspectives between Peter Parker and Miles Morales.
5.
The story will be familiar until it isn't
In Spider-man 2, Peter is mysteriously wearing the black alien suit, which nearly corrupted him completely in the comics and films. Intihar said the sequel will have its own spin.
The first game made some bold decisions about iconic characters, including Peter's best friend Harry Osborn, who is a prominent character in past storylines but mentioned only in whispers and gossip. Insomniac's writers also killed off Peter's aunt.
“We went back and forth on (killing Aunt May) during the first development, and I think you're going to see a similar theme (in the new game),” Intihar said. “I think you're going to see things you're hoping for as a fan, but you're also going to see some surprises along the way.”