Sony's PlayStation press conference at E3 last night was filled with a number of jaw-dropping reveals and announcements for its original licenses. However for me, one third-party partnership stole the entire show. It's been a long time since we've had a Spider-Man video game we could get excited about, but with Insomniac developing an all-new action game exclusively for the PlayStation 4, it's time to get excited again.

With a laundry list of credits that include industry legends like Ratchet and Clank, Sly Cooper and most recently, Sunset Overdrive, a developer as qualified as Insomniac Games is taking the reins on ol' webhead should get your spider-sense tingling. Just look at that trailer. It's got everything you could possibly want from a Spider-Man game all wrapped into one nice little package. What's more, according to Insomniac, that's not a rendered trailer; that's the game.

Now there are two things that are probably bugging you about this trailer. One, that the game is Sony exclusive, and two, that new suit.

As we all know, Spider-Man's movie rights have been tied to Sony for a long time. While that hasn't had anything to do with his game rights before, it would appear that the recent deal between Marvel and Sony over getting to use Spider-Man in the Marvel Cinematic Universe has lead us down this road. Not that this game has anything to do with the movie itself. This is a standalone game in its own world. Still, sorry, Xbox One and PC fans, you're just going to have to sit this one out.

Secondly, we've got that new suit. It's not a tremendously drastic departure from what we've seen, aside from the bright white spider logo on his chest and back. It's an interesting choice to implement a color not typically seen anywhere in Spider-Man's classic style, even through all his multimedia adventures. Sure, Spidey's had some different costumes over the years, like his Future Foundation and symbiote costume, but nobody's really changed up the old red and blue quite this much in the past. If it bothers you tremendously, here's one thing to think about: almost every Spider-Man game ever developed has included alternate costumes. Also, Insomniac has included different clothing options in a number of its games, so you'll likely be able to tweak Spidey to better suit your tastes in-game.

Now that that's out of the way, how great does this game look? It's not clear just what engine Spider-Man is using just yet (or if that's even the game's final title), but there are definitely some touches from the Sunset Overdrive engine seen in action. That game was all about ridiculous verticality and flying through the city, and those characters didn't even have webshooters. Seeing Spider-Man whip through the city, land on cars, flip and slide through public spaces; it's all just glorious and it looks so smooth. Even when things start getting hairy, the action combos between straight melee and web-based attacks just looks terrific. It's early, and we've no idea just how polished the final game will be, but Insomniac hasn't let us down yet.

Eagle-eyed Spider-fans may have noticed a number of the hints about the game's story and characters, including a sign showing one of the Osborns was running for mayor. There's also the matter of the villains shown in this brief snippet --- the Inner Demons. That means it's more than likely the Mister Negative isn't far behind. Plus, the FEAST building appears later on, further hinting that Negative will play a part. Just how large remains to be seen, but if he's around, can Anti-Venom and Venom be far behind?

Spider-Man will be available exclusively on PlayStation 4 in 2017.

 

Insomniac Games
Insomniac Games
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Insomniac Games
Insomniac Games
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