Enlarge / Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a PlayStation can. (credit: Sony/Insomniac/Marvel)
Sony concluded one of the least surprising PlayStation E3 conferences in recent memory with a pretty clutch closer: Spiderman. The PlayStation-exclusive superhero game from Insomniac Games now has a launch window of 2018, and if its actual gameplay looks as sharp as its debut trailer, we’re in for the most stunning Insomniac game yet.
The eight-minute demo looked like a cross between the devs’ Sunset Overdrive series and the Batman Arkham brawlers—with, of course, a healthy dollop of web-slinging whimsy. A young-sounding Peter Parker cracked wise as he took down countless masked thugs, using equal parts stealth, combat, and web-slinging trickery. On-screen indicators popped up when Parker could either insta-jump at a location or spin a useful web. This resulted in some wild enemy takedowns, including one where a foe was caught and then flung over a rafter and others where Spidey whipped giant, iron bars around like Lincoln logs.
Eventually, the game’s claustrophobic, sneak-and-fight sequence opened up to a city-spanning chase between Spidey and a low-flying helicopter. It looked simple (and thrilling) enough for the demo’s player to chain together Tarzan web swings and high-speed wall runs while traversing a densely populated city. This downtown scene, by the way, consisted of a surprising variety of building types and textures along with tons of reflective window effects, dense foliage, and many denizens on the roads below. (I first assumed this was pre-rendered footage, but then I remembered what an incredible job Insomniac did with last year’s Ratchet and Clank remaster. If anybody can pull such a game off in real time on PlayStation 4 hardware, it’s those devs.)
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