The Spider-Man game we’ve all been waiting for is coming to Playstation 5

In unexpected news, Spider-Man: Miles Morales arrives later this year!

Much like death and taxes, the release of the Play Station 5 is inevitable. Sony recently unveiled its next-generation console (slated to hit stores during the 2020 holiday season) and with it, the games that players will be able to enjoy upon release. To the joy of many gamers (including yours truly), one of those games centers around a certain, famous wall-crawler.

With Insomniac’s Spider-Man being one of the biggest video game hits of recent memory, there was a lot of excitement surrounding a potential second installment in the franchise. Given the time it took to develop 2018’s Spider-Man (for context, it was announced in 2016 and released in September of 2018), many of us imagined a sequel would take a while. However, lo and behold, that is not the case.

Today, during its PS5 reveal, Sony announced a new Spider-Man game from Insomniac Games, titled Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. As the title implies, the game will allow players to take control of Peter’s protégé, Miles Morales, as he masters his powers and becomes New York’s newest wall-crawling hero.

Before you think we’ll have to wait a few years before getting into Miles’ arachnid-themed Spidey boots, think again, because the game is coming out during the 2020 holidays. Take a look at the game’s first trailer:

The trailer features a few snippets of gameplay, and shows the abilities players will get to use, such as Miles’ invisibility and powerful venom blasts (it looks like you do not want to be on the receiving end of those).

The fact that we are getting a new Spider-Man game so soon after the first was released is a big deal, and it understandably raises some questions about what’s to come for Insomniac’s nascent Spider-Man universe.

What Can We Expect From the Game?

We’re not referring to the story Spider-Man: Miles Morales will tell or the villains we’ll be able to punch in the face — we’re referring to the nature of the game. For the most part, video games—especially ones as intricate as say, Spider-Man or Batman: Arkham Knight — take a long time to make (like, make-a-blockbuster-and-its-sequel, get-a-college-education-from-start-to-finish type of long). By the time Spider-Man: Miles Morales comes out, however, 2018’s Spider-Man will be a little over two years old.

That’s quite a stretch of time, but in video game development terms, it’s a fairly small gap between a game and its sequel. That could lead some players to wonder whether Miles Morales will be a “full” video game, ala its 2018 predecessor (a game with a long story, tons of extras to unlock and follow-up DLC content), or whether it will be a relatively brief experience set in Insomniac’s Spider-Man universe.

There are times when video game franchises are continued with relatively small adventures. Two prominent examples of this are Uncharted: The Lost Legacy and most recently, Mortal Kombat 11: Aftermath. These games (or in Aftermath‘s case, expansions) are not short enough to be considered DLC as most players understand it, but they’re still not as massive as their predecessors. It doesn’t mean they are lacking, it just means they were designed to be smaller in nature.

Due to the seemingly short development time, fans of the Spider-Man series may wonder whether Spider-Man: Miles Morales will offer a similar amount of content as the Peter Parker-led video game. Given that the game is still a few months away, it’s difficult to answer that with absolute certainty, but there are two things that point to Miles Morales offering the full gaming experience that Insomniac’s Spider-Man faithfuls have been hoping for.

Firstly, Sony released a few details from the game in its PlayStation Blog. The site describes the game mechanics as follows:

"“With PS5’s ultra-fast SSD, players can near-instantaneously fast-travel across Marvel’s New York City, or feel the tension of each one of Miles’s web-swings, punches, web shots, and venom blasts with the DualSense wireless controller’s haptic feedback. Highly-detailed character models and enhanced visuals across the game intensify the story of Miles Morales as he faces great, new challenges while learning to be his own Spider-Man.”"

The new features offered by the PS5, as well as Miles’ powers and movements shown in the trailer (including his own style of web-swinging) point to the game being an intricately designed experience with unique features not previously seen in its franchise.

The second thing we have to consider is the number of resources available for the development of Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of open-world games is building the environment players will explore. That, however, may not have been a problem when it came to developing this new entry in the Spidey franchise, since Insomniac spent a great deal of time creating a detailed New York with thousands of features and an abundant population for 2018’s Spider-Man.

“Why does that matter?,” you ask? Because, while we don’t know how long Insomniac has been working on Miles Morales, its development time has apparently been shorter than that of its predecessor. Overall, it seems the company began crafting the game after 2018’s Spider-Man was almost — if not fully — completed. So, if that was indeed the case, it’s possible developers didn’t have to worry too much about designing an open world (aside from changing things up a little bit from the previous installment) since the template was already there.

This could mean (and, again, I am simply speculating) that, with the template of an ambitious open world in place, Insomniac had to worry less about creating an environment to explore and focus more on new characters, animations and story, thus needing less time to complete the game. Whether that is actually the case, we’ll probably know for sure once Spider-Man: Miles Morales is released.

But Wait… Does The Game Mean Peter Parker’s Spider-Man Dies?

For a while after Miles Morales’ creation, the young man’s heroic journey was closely tied to Peter Parker’s death at the hands of his most ferocious villains (at least, if you’re going by Marvel’s Ultimate Comics storyline or Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse). That changed in recent years, as Miles joined Marvel’s main universe and became Peter’s protégé.

While Peter dying hasn’t factored into Miles’ stories in comic books and other media for a while now (except, of course, for Into The Spider-Verse), it is possible that the announcement of this game made fans think that Peter will meet an untimely death and pass on the Spidey mantle — and presumably his trademark bad luck — to Miles Morales. To make this brief, that seems an unlikely scenario.

Insomniac’s Spider-Man is just starting. Perhaps not in the game’s lore, since Peter’s been a crime-fighter for many years when the story begins; but he is starting in terms of the game opening up a whole new chapter in his life.

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2018’s Spider-Man changed Peter Parker’s status quo. Peter’s belief in the good he does as a superhero was strengthened by Aunt May dying, he seemed to be on track to get back together with the love of his life, Mary Jane Watson, and Norman Osborn paved the way for Pete to fight one of his greatest adversaries: Venom. There are clearly much more stories to tell, and it’s unlikely that Insomniac would drop them completely to focus on a new web-slinger.

Instead, what the company could be doing is simply building up two Spider-Men to support the future of the franchise. That in turn could give players two different perspectives on Spider-Man’s crime-fighting world. Fans will soon have the opportunity to explore New York through both Peter Parker and Miles Morales’ lenses, and learn how each one feels about being a superhero, and the ways in which they cope with their responsibilities. That could add even more depth to Insomniac’s Spider-Man lore, and make this nascent superhero universe a more exciting place to be in (you know, more exciting than it already is).

Ultimately, we’ll know for sure what’s in store for Peter and Miles once Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales hits shelves later this year.

Are you excited to see Miles Morales web-sling his way onto our screens? Let us know in the comments below!