Spider-Man PS4 is one amazing game. It’s sold astronomically well and has one of the best review scores of the last couple of years. The game was made by Insomniac Studios, who have made other games such as Sunset Overdrive and Rachet & Clank.
Insomniac was approached by Marvel and were asked which Marvel superhero they wanted to make a game out of. Apparently, they almost immediately responded with Spider-Man.
Which, makes sense, because the physics and traversal in Sunset Overdrive makes a fantastic foundation for what eventually became Spider-Man PS4. The game was first teased at E3 2016, in a reveal trailer that showed this game had real potential. And of course, like any other game, they faced some hardships along the way. People don’t seem to realize that developing a game is a monumental task even for a large team. Things are constantly being changed for a variety of reasons and sometimes a crucial part of the game is completely cut. It’s usually not any one persons fault, but it just comes with the job. Now Spider-Man PS4 released in a pretty much completed state. The game had plenty of content, a ton of characters, and a relatively long plotline. In fact, originally, people had trouble finding flaws. But as we get farther from release, and we’re able to look back, we can tell some things were changed. Some for the better, and some for the worse. Now I will say, some of these aren’t confirmed, but have been rumored or can be inferred. It’s incredibly difficult to find out every little change during the multi-year developmental cycle. But, I’ll do my best in telling you 20 Last-Minute Changes That Hurt Spider-Man PS4 (And 10 That Saved it)
30 Hurt: Puddlegate - Equal Blame On Both Sides
So let’s start things off on just the most passive-aggressive footing. Wasn’t Puddlegate hilarious?
“Puddlegate” refers to an event where people compared the footage from the original 2016 reveal of Marvel’s Spider-Man PS4 to the later gameplay trailers and complained very loudly.
In these comparisons, the “graphics” are obviously downgraded a tad, and the reflective puddles that were in the original trailer are basically gone. Now, the game still looks incredible, but this was actually a downgrade. The fans freaking out as much as they did is deplorable, but the developers denying it was a downgrade altogether was also a detriment to the overall reception.
29 Hurt: Mid-Development DLC - Obvious From The Get-Go
Finally, all of the promised DLC for Spider-Man PS4 has released. We got to see Black Cat and Hammerhead. Plus, some frankly annoying new enemy types.
Overall the DLC was moderately well-received, it’s not straight up amazing, but still good.
A bit of bad press for Insomniac games originally though, was that it’s obvious this DLC had been planned since the beginning. The Black Cat missions in the main story are all little teases to it for example. Not a huge deal, but the gaming audience is extra-critical of planned DLC, so it definitely did a bit of damage.
28 Saved - Skipping Puzzles - Always Give People A Choice
Now, on the other side of things, Spider-Man PS4 does a lot more right than it does wrong. I think we can all agree the game is so incredibly enjoyable.
But one of the best parts about Spider-Man PS4 is that there are so many ways to play it your way.
The prime example is with all the puzzles throughout the game. Now a lot of these are puzzles mini-games that we’ve seen before, namely the Batman Arkham games. Insomniac realized we might be tired of them and gave players the choice to skip the mini-games. It really saves a lot of time in the long run and helped the game keep its freshness and pace for me.
27 Hurt: MJ’s Stealth Gameplay - Superhero Game Becomes Super Boring
There aren’t many flaws in Spider-Man PS4, in all honesty. But the Mary Jane’s missions, in particular, are frankly boring and a real misstep.
Why would Insomniac think people want to stop playing as a super-powered spider-human, so they can sneak around as a normal civilian?
The game already has decent stealth gameplay as Spider-Man, why ruin it? Now slight spoilers, but in the last MJ stealth section, you can knock items over, use audio distractions, and straight up taze people. But these abilities aren’t available from the beginning. If they were, it’d be a safe bet that no one would dislike these sections as much as they do.
26 Hurt: Restricting Black Cat to DLC - Could’ve Been So Much More
One of the few flaws of Spider-Man PS4 has to do with its large and diverse cast. You have Mary Jane, a photographer and investigative journalist, Miles Morales who is essentially a different type of Spider-Man, and Black Cat, a stealthy and manipulative thief.
Thats three different chances for a real switch up in terms of gameplay.
MJ could’ve had LA Noire-esque missions, Miles could’ve been a different type of playable Spider-Man, and Black Cat could’ve been a replacement for the stealth missions. Parts of this actually kind of seemed to be the plan, at least for MJ and Miles, but something changed along the way.
25 Saved: Accessibility Options - For The Biggest Crowd Possible
But, let’s talk about accessibility in Spider-Man PS4. Since there is actually an entire section of the options menu all about it. It’s frankly staggering for a game this large to have so many options.
I personally think it’s because both Insomniac and Marvel wanted to make the game enjoyable for just about anyone of any age or skill level.
In any case, it’s a great addition that really adds value to the game. Plus, the amount of work on the developer side seems quite small, it’s not hard to add an option in. In fact, most of these options take mechanics away!
24 Hurt: Construction Scene Is Missing Martin - A Real Missed Opportunity
Mister Negative is probably the most well written he ever has or will be in Spider-Man PS4. The character is based around the “invert colors” option in Microsoft Paint for Spidey’s sake! But, Insomniac gave him personality, depth, and an arc this time around. It’s just sad to see what changed between the original reveal and now.
Originally Martin Li was supposed to be revealed as Mr. Negative at the Fisk Construction mission, or at least show up.
This would have been an amazing way for Peter to find out and would have Martin in the thick of it. But, in the final product, there is gravitas placed on some random goon that ended up replacing his model.
23 Hurt: Miles Is Playable, But Not How You Wanted - Kept Spider-Man 2.0 On The Ground
Miles Morales is one of the best examples of a hero passing the torch to date. With all of human history, it is still amazing to see an African-American and Latino character representing an icon like Spider-Man.
But he’s from an alternate universe originally. So, when he shows up in Spider-Man PS4, people freaked out.
His powers are slightly different than Parker’s so people were expecting some missions as him. You know, while he figures out his new gifts. Instead, he’s relegated to more boring stealth missions but this time with a hacking mechanic. It was a real ball drop on Insomniac’s part and reeks of not being part of the original plan. At least the Rhino stealth mission was cool.
22 Saved: Yuri’s Double Takes - Literally Two Versions Of Every Line
This is my personal favorite bit of trivia and one you’ve probably heard before. But the voice actor for Peter Parker, named Yuri Lowenthal, actually recorded two versions of almost every line in the game. That’s because Insomniac didn’t want to have the calls in the game suddenly drop whenever Peter went into combat.
So, in order to achieve that, they had Yuri record the line as if he was relaxed, and then record it again as if he was winded.
The result? When you’re fighting ten thugs and talking to Aunt May on the phone, Peter will sound realistically out of breath or in a rush. A small detail but incredibly immersive nontheless.
21 Hurt: Poor Suit Power Balancing - Just Use Web Blossom
Now, this is a nitpick I almost don’t want to make. Because the amount of suit powers in this game is amazing. But, It’s incredibly hard to use an ability obviously worse than another one. And that’s where Spider-Man PS4 messes up.
The Web Blossom, Quad Damage, and Spider-Bro suit powers are so, so much better than all the others.
Like two to three times better. And it stinks because they’re also the most visually boring, in my opinion. Honestly, I’m shocked Insomniac hasn’t adjusted it by now. They did an amazing job making the suit powers, but most people will only ever really use three.
20 Hurt: No Weather Change System - They Kinda Just…Forgot
During a couple of talks with Insomniac leading up to the release of Spider-Man PS4, they mentioned plans for some extra systems. The company was extremely happy with how their interpretation of New York turned out and promised to include a way to change both the time of day and weather for players who beat the game.
Now once you complete all the Research Stations they’ll have an option inside to change the time of day.
But I guess they changed their minds about letting us control the weather. Maybe they’re saving that feature for a Storm from X-Men game down the road. You know what? Probably not.
19 Saved: Able To Customize Loadout - Makes It Way More Unique
In most games with cosmetics or armor for your playable character, there are two ways to go about it. One is to have the armor not actually affect gameplay at all. The other is to have each different suit equipped with different stats/abilities. But both of these have their own batch of issues.
Insomniac may have found the perfect middle ground, however.
Because whenever you unlock a new suit in Spider-Man PS4, you unlock its suit power. But, you can mix and match the powers with any of the suits. So say you unlock the Iron Spider suit with the extra arms power. You can then equip that power to say the home-made suit. It really makes each playthrough unique without much work on Insomniac’s part.
18 Hurt: Originally Miles Was Revenge Focused - A Brooding Miles
There are a bunch of different ways the whole “Miles Morales” angle could have gone in Spider-Man PS4. Not to say that the one we got isn’t a fresh and inventive take because it is.
But, apparently, one of the original concepts for Miles was going to have him much more focused on revenge against Martin Li, taking him down a very dark path.
Maybe he would’ve gotten his Spider-powers earlier and the gameplay could’ve switched between veteran Peter Parker and revenge-hungry newbie Miles Morales. Instead, we get our alternate universe Spider-Man doing the same boring stealth missions as MJ.
17 Hurt: Backpacks In New York - Peter Ain’t Rich
These couldn’t have always been backpacks right? I mean I know in game, Peter says that he used to stash his old backpacks around in high school and college. But, there are over fifty of them in the game!
It’s just doesn’t make sense. Peter Parker is always broke, he can barely make rent. So how is it he’s bought over fifty backpacks to just stash around the city? Minor detail I know, but all the other collectibles make much more sense.
Plus, from my understanding, Spidey’s web always breaks down after a couple of hours. These must have been a different collectible originally that just didn’t work out.
16 Saved: Peter’s Three Chest Hairs - Better Than I Can Grow
So honestly, I just wanted to include this little fact on here, as it did require a change on some developers part. So, at the beginning of the game, Peter’s snazzy new suit gets a bit tarnished.
It’s all torn up and Parker makes a passing comment that people might be able to see his “three chest hairs”.
Well, there’s a secret unlockable costume that has Peter showing off his swole physique in nothing but his boxers. If you zoom on his chest in the photo mode, you’ll see that Insomniac actually modeled three little chest hairs on him. Now thats attention to detail.
15 Hurt: Marriage Proposal Gone Wrong - Never Again
I’m sure everyone has heard about this story by now, but it still left a bad taste in our collective mouths, so I’ve got to include it.
In May 2018, during the development of Spider-Man PS4, a fan reached out to the dev team asking for a favor.
He asked if Insomniac could include the phrase “Maddie will you marry me?” somewhere in the game. The team obliged and the game came out in early September 2018. Turns out the couple had actually broken up just weeks before release, and the heartwarming proposal suddenly became a bitter punch line. It’s a real one-two punch of a sad story that unfortunately affected the reception of the game, however minor.
14 Hurt: No Running Through Buildings - Spider-Man Stuck Outside
Because of the way games are developed nowadays, it’s hard for me to get excited watching trailers at something like E3. Companies drop reveal teasers for games that are still years away, only showing off pre-made cinematics that don’t at all represent the final product. Now Spider-Man PS4 handled this better than most. 99% of what they showed in the trailers made it into the final product, but a couple of disheartening things were cut.
One was the “running through the cafe” part of the reveal trailer.
It made it seem like this New York would be more explorable on the interior than it actually ended up being.
13 Saved: Not Copying Spider-Man 2 - Similar To, Yet Completely Unique
If someone mentions fun traversal in gaming, the first thing that pops up in anyone’s head is the swinging in Spider-Man 2.
The physics-based swinging in that game was light years ahead of its time and was the work of one dedicated man named Jamie Fristrom.
Now, Spider-Man PS4 directly references Spider-Man 2 in an easter egg. The devs have also talked about how they wanted the swinging in Spider-Man PS4 to be at least as enjoyable as it was in 2. But, they actually ended up with their own unique version of swinging. It’s a great change that feels unique to Insomniac instead of an attempted rip-off, even if I still miss the old swinging.
12 Hurt: UI Changes - A Bit More Mundane
This might just be me, but I feel like the UI elements in the early trailers for Spider-Man PS4 were much stronger than the final product’s.
They’re not all too different, but all the new versions were safe changes, instead of unique ones.
The UI in the trailers seemed to be more stylish, creative, and clear. While the UI we eventually got is great, but not as good. Especially considering how clustered the menus can get. The blues feel brighter, the icons are more clear, and it just has more…pizazz. Probably the smallest complaint I can think of, but it did hurt the final product for me.
11 Hurt: DMC Style Combo Meter - SSS Combo
Also, I’m so upset about this part of the UI being cut I gave it its own entry.
Now if you’re at all familiar with actions games, you might’ve heard of titles like Bayonetta, Devil May Cry, or Metal Gear Rising.
These types of games are focused on doing the coolest looking combos possible and getting a ranking based on your performance. The reveal trailer for Spider-Man PS4 shows that they had that system in place. And technically it’s still there in the final release, but not nearly as similar to DMC. I just want smoking sick style for my Spider-Man combo alright?
