All too often in movies, TV shows, and even video games, we see what are called “cash grabs”. Meaning that though this could be something special via its name or property, it’s just a cheap attempt to make money by making something sub-par or passable. For a long time, comic book video games were one of these cash grabs. Until the Batman Arkham series came along that is. And now, Insomniac is trying to keep the quality titles a rolling with their Spider-Man game coming next month.
There’s a lot of hype going into the title, and Insomniac knew that to make the game feel truly special they had to do many things. Insomniac Games’ community manager James Stevenson talked with Stuff and noted that one of the key parts was making New York feel like New York:
“We wanted it to feel dense and populated, we wanted the city to feel like it was people on the streets. The other thing we knew was we wanted to have activities which have story ties; it shouldn’t ever be a straight up challenge, there’s always a story for whatever you’re doing,”
Another key aspect in their minds was restricting what was shown. They want people to Marvel (pun intended) at what they show, but they don’t want to spoil everything:
“I think there’s a lot of responsibility on fans, to guard themselves if they decide to, as much as there’s a responsibility on us to not show too much in some ways. I don’t know, people debate spoiler culture and if it’s needed, it’s a relatively new thing. I will say in this, we’ve been trying to surprise people and to shake things up in a way that’s rewarding.”
We’ll find out how well they did when Spider-Man arrives on PS4 on September 7th.
