Marvel’s Spider-Man on PlayStation has now become the benchmark for a Spidey gaming experience. It’s not the first game featuring the web swinger, but it’s the most popular one to date. So, when fans learned of a canceled live-service Spider-Man game, they were excited and disappointed at the same time.
Titled Spider-Man: The Great Web, the game was more than just a passing idea. Leaked videos have shown a fully-voiced and animated trailer for the game, along with a pitch presentation. The pitch video in particular fleshed out the game and how it would have progressed, including some mechanics that were not there in the PlayStation 5 exclusive.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Didn’t Feature the Level of Customization Planned for The Great Web
The leaked pitch video goes into extensive detail regarding plans for the game, mission outlines, and Battle Pass progression. One specific frame is very important, and it comes in at the 5:55-minute mark. We see a circular chart on the screen, depicting a cycle of events that will happen in the game.
The first section of the chart is labeled ‘Challenge’, and below we have a list of the different missions players could have taken on, such as Great Web Raids, Villain Schemes, Street Crimes, and Side Gigs. Completing these missions will earn you ‘Rewards,’ the second section in the chart. These come in the form of Cash, XP, Skill Points, Spider-Tech, and Challenge Tokens. These can be used to gain ‘Upgrades’ such as Hero Levels, Abilities, Gadgets, Inventions, Apartments, and Web Strands.
Marvel’s Spider-Man did have the ability to craft certain gadgets using a variety of tokens earned by completing in-game challenges. But, with the live service model, we would have gotten fresh gadgets, skills, and abilities to invest in with every season.
The presence of apartments, which assumedly would act as a base or hub for missions, would have been very different from the PS5 game. While we do visit the Spidey Heroes’ homes, we don’t use them as a base of operations. Allowing personalization of homes based on player preferences would have helped make your Spider-Man unique!
The Great Web would have featured a Lot of Content
It appears as though Insomniac put a significant amount of effort and thought into this project. The plan was to have a total of eight seasons for this game. With a season planned for every quarter of a year, the pitch presentation shows new content would have been added until 2030!
A co-op live service Spider-Man game is a unique concept, and focusing it on the Spiderverse would have been a genius move. The movie performed phenomenally at the box office, and a game with a similar theme would have drawn in existing fans and a fresh audience.
Sadly, for reasons unknown, this project never got off the ground, and all we have now are leaked videos and speculations. Many fans are clamoring for the project to be taken up once again, with some even starting a petition.
Do you feel Insomniac should once again pick up The Great Web? Let us know in the comments below.
