‘Spider-Man PS4’ Gets Fresh Details at Comic-Con But Still No Release Date

With E3 and Comic-Con 2017 now behind us, we’ve got plenty of fresh information about the highly-anticipated Spider-Man PS4 game. First announced at E3 2016, fans went a whole year without hearing anything new about the title.

But now we’ve learned a lot more about the combat, a few storyline snippets and more. and we’ve collated everything we know about Spider-Man PS4 here for your reading pleasure.

Is it actually called Spider-Man PS4?

Insomniac hasn’t officially named its upcoming Spider-Man game, so for the time being it’s merely being called Spider-Man PS4, because it’s going to be a PS4 exclusive. Simple, but effective.

It’s the official hashtag at the moment too from Insomniac games, so keep an eye on #spidermanPS4 for news around E3 time. We imagine a full title and gameplay reveal will happen during Sony’s press conference on June 12.

What will the Spider-Man PS4 gameplay be like?

Until E3 2017, all we knew about the Spider-Man PS4 gameplay is the above trailer, which debuted at E3 2016 during Sony’s press conference. But this June, Sony revealed the first full-length gameplay trailer for the game, with nine glorious minutes of footage.

The Spider-Man E3 2017 trailer very much focused on the game’s combat, with Spidey rocking some nice webby moves in his snazzy new suit. He’s capable of stringing enemies up on girders and has some kind of delayed web explosion that grabs foes and slams them back into the earth.

We’re loving how much the combat looks (and hopefully feels) like that of the Batman: Arkham series, with close-quarters combat looking incredibly fluid, with the addition of some tactical skills on top.

Spidey’s skills see him capable of slowing down time to send webs flying into enemy faces and using the environment to take out multiple enemies at once. It looks like it’s going to be a very interactive world with a huge focus on verticality to make sure you really feel like Spider-Man as you swing through Manhattan and run up walls.

Interestingly, the trailer’s biggest events heavily relied on Quick Time Events (or QTE) with all the big moments making you press triangle here for this, X for that, or a tap on the shoulder buttons to stop a massive crane crashing into the bystanders below.

And don’t forget, this is an open world game around four-to-six times the size of Insomniac’s other IP Sunset Overdrive and all of New York will be open to you from the very start of the game.

“You cannot have a Spider-Man game that’s not open world, in my opinion,” added Intihar.

Is this an origins story?

Although Insomniac isn’t ready to talk properly about the story yet, we do know that Spider-Man PS4 isn’t an origins story, but rather a “more experienced” Spidey played out in an original storyline.

“We’re making a unique Spider-Man universe that’s not based on one of the movies, or the comics,” explained Bryan Intihar, Creative Director on Spider-Man PS4 at SDCC. “Obviously it’s inspired by all of those, because it’s such a rich history and we all grew up on the character. But, we wanted to do something that obviously sticks to the traditions of the franchise but we also wanted to mix things up.”

“The best stories are when Peter’s world and Spider-Man’s collide. That’s pretty much our mantra every day we’re making this game – are we delivering on our promise?”

Insomniac has also revealed that it’s going to be a story that Marvel’s had a big hand in, so this is about as official a Spider-Man game as you’re going to get.

And Marvel hasn’t been shy in bragging about its quality. Marvel Games Creative Director, Bill Rosemann, has been gushing about the love of the franchise shared by Marvel and Insomniac.

“You may have heard that we’re making a Spider-Man game with Ted Price’s team at Insomniac and our friends at Sony Interactive Entertainment,” said Rosemann at the DICE Summit 2017, as spotted on Reddit. “The other day we were sitting around talking… Insomniac is only ten minutes away from Marvel Games offices… and we’re eating lunch and talking, asking each other: “Hey, when [did] you first get into Spider-Man? And we all realized we had the same story. We discovered him when we were very little. Not only that, we all realized that we all owned the same Spider-Man underoos back in the day.

“And it feels like our lives have driven us to this moment. This is our purpose: to show the world why this character is so awesome. To bring this fictional world into the real world. It’s very personal for us. We’re going to focus our life’s journey into this game, to celebrate him with the world.”

Marvel’s Senior Vice President of Games and Innovation, Jay Ong, also explained that the Marvel Games arm has been given the opportunity to deviate from the film and comic book sources to make its own stories.

“We’re absolutely stand alone,” Ong stressed in an interview with GameSpot. “When I started at Marvel, there was this chance to reboot the business; to start from scratch. One of the key pillars we strived for was to use our games as a driver of the brand, certainly, and as a creator of original IP. So we strive very hard to make sure our games have really cool storylines that are wholly original.”

Who will you be fighting?

The two big antagonists shown off so far for Spider-Man PS4 are Wilson Fisk (aka The Kingpin) and Martin Li (aka Mr Negative).

“As some of you know, [Mr. Negative] is a relevant newcomer to the staple of Spider-Man villains,” said Bryan Intihar at SDCC. “We thought that he was one of the characters that we could add to the game that lets us see the collision of Peter and Spider-Man’s worlds. On the surface Martin Li is this really good guy and he’s running these feed shelters around the city and Aunt May happens to work there. So obviously there’s a Peter connection.”

“But then as the game goes on, we reveal the other side of Martin Li as Mr. Negative running the Inner Demons. So obviously Spider-Man is very involved with that. In the E3 trailer, Spider-Man doesn’t say Mr. Negative when he finally sees Martin Li is the head of the Inner Demons, he actually says Martin Li because in his head is that connection ‘Oh god, my aunt works for this guy. Is she in danger? What’s going on?'”

“I think you’ll see in the game – whether it’s Miles, whether it’s Aunt May, whether it’s Mr. Negative – we try to have that connection. There are some big ones that we haven’t revealed yet.”

At the SDCC panel, Intihar also revealed some epic concept art of a fight that will happen in the game between Mr. Negative and Spider-Man in a subway train.

“Obviously fighting in a train is hard from his perspective because he has limited mobility in that inclosed space, but on the other hand he’s able to pull off some moves that you’ve never seen before,” explained Intihar. “We want to put him in challenging situations.”

Was that really Miles Morales in the trailer?

In the closing moments of the Spider-Man PS4 E3 2017 trailer, you spot Miles Morales, someone who goes on to be Spider-Man in the Ultimate Spider-Man comics.

“That was Miles Morales,” confirmed Insomniac’s James Stevenson in an interview at E3. “I would say that our universe is different. You may have seen the signs that say ‘re-elect Osborn for mayor’. That’s obviously very, very different from any other Spider-Man universe so you will find a lot of characters in our universe that are familiar characters that may be in new roles.”

Norman Osborn, as many of you will know, is the Green Goblin, so this should be a very different role for the traditionally villainous character.

What about that Spidey suit?

In the above PS4 Pro trailer for Spider-Man PS4, you get a good look at the Spidey suit for this game. It’s quite unique, with a large white spider design on the back, almost similar to that of the Black Spider-Man from the 1980s. That design eventually morphed into Venom, but there are some definite similarities here, although this suit retains the red and blue hues.

But what’s great about the suit Spider-Man wears in this new game is that it will be totally original.

“You know, Spider-Man’s costume in the [2017 Spider-Man] game, for instance, is original right? It’s neither theatrical costume or is it from the comic books,” explained Marvel’s Senior Vice President of Games and Innovation, Jay Ong, in an interview with GameSpot.

“One of the things we wanted to do is make sure people know this is Insomniac’s Spider-Man,” explained Creative Director Bryan Intihar at SDCC.

Insomniac has also hinted that there’s a reason for that big white spider, although the studio isn’t giving anything away just yet.

When will we be playing Spider-Man PS4?

Although Insomniac Games isn’t ready to slap a release date on Spider-Man PS4, we do have a vague launch window of 2018 for the title. Hopefully it’s the first half rather than the second half, but we’ll just have to wait and see.