After E3, there was a bit of Spider-Man fever hitting the world of pop culture, after Insomniac Games revealed the first full look at gameplay from their upcoming PS4-exclusive Spider-Man game. Today, with the MCU movie Spider-Man: Homecoming completely webbing up the box office to the tune of $120 million domestically in one weekend, that fever has turned into a full-blown Spider-Mania (see what I did there?).
While we’ve only got an 8-minute snippet of what Spider-Man can do in Insomniac’s upcoming game, the movie has given us good insight as to what could have been, and what might still be. But, anyone expecting Insomniac Games to do a last-minute scramble to change or add aspects to fit to the film’s version of the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man shouldn’t get their hopes too high. That being said, the film did outline some interesting potential as to what Spider-Man could have included, if it hasn’t already.
For instance, Tom Holland’s suit in Spider-Man: Homecoming has what is essentially wall-hacks, allowing him to see heat signatures through obstacles and hear long distances. These abilities are unlocked by disabling the hilariously named “Training Wheels Protocol” put there by Tony Stark. Called “Enhanced Reconnaissance,” this is used by Spider-Man to spy on his enemies.
However, neither this nor any similar capability was on display at E3 for Insomniac’s Spider-Man. Nor was the Spider-Drone that comes off Spider-Man’s chest in Homecoming, and what we saw of the game didn’t feature any sort of micro tracker as was used in the movie. While these features or one similar may actually be in Insomniac’s Spider-Man, and we just didn’t see it because it was only an eight minute clip of a presumably multi-hour game, that’s perfectly reasonable. That said, if these features aren’t already in the game, I wouldn’t expect them to be added in the wake of the movie.
In fact, Insomniac Games has already been fielding lots of movie-related questions on Twitter, most of which they answer by stating that they have no relationship with the movie beyond sharing a titular character.
Game is not based on or tied to the movie in anyway.
— Insomniac Games (@insomniacgames) July 10, 2017
Really, though, this is a good thing. It would be disheartening, honestly, if a video game were to rush in unfinished features just because of a popular movie. Insomniac has the wonderful opportunity to be separate from the movies and create something different. Indeed, they’re in the same position as Rocksteady following The Dark Knight. Rocksteady didn’t just set out to make a video game version of Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece – they created their own.
Besides, we’ve already seen what happens if a Spider-Man game tries to be too much like the most relevant movie (The Amazing Spider-Man 2), and I don’t think any of us wants to live through that again.
