WE SIT DOWN WITH INSOMNIAC GAMES TO DISCUSS SPIDER-MAN, THE LARGEST AND MOST AMBITIOUS GAME THE STUDIO HAS DARED TAKE ON IN ITS 24-YEAR HISTORY
“Listen, I get it. I know that 99.9 per cent of people are only buying this game because they want to swing around as Spider-Man – and trust me, you’re going to be doing a ton of that in this game – but I think that when you look back at the great comic book stories, when you look at the best Marvel movies, what they all do so well is that they tell a human story. You get to experience the person behind the mask as much as the person wearing it,” considers creative director Bryan Intihar, speaking exclusively to Play. “To really capture a true Spider-Man experience I feel like you couldn’t Spider-Man.”
Few videogame studios have understood the core of this character better than Insomniac. It knows that Spider-Man is only as legendary as the challenges that Peter Parker encounters, regardless of whether he is facing them inside of the suit or out of it. That has been established time and time again over the last 56 years; there have been countless interpretations of the character in that time across every entertainment medium you could think of – be it comic books, film, TV, animation, videogames and beyond.
Spider-Man’s enduring success has established a loyal fanbase, one broad enough to ensure that every fan will likely carry a different perspective on what elements make Spider-Man such an iconic and long-lasting figure. All of that can create seismic, intractable expectations for a creative team – particularly one charged with overseeing a project as immediately impressive and anticipated as this upcoming PS4 exclusive.
Insomniac might have been creating videogames for close to 25 years, but the studio knows it has never faced anything quite like this before. Spider-Man is a creative challenge the studio isn’t taking lightly, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that has the whole world watching. “There’s an unbelievable amount of responsibility for us to get this right,” admits Intihar, the tone of his voice suggesting that this isn’t the first time he has had to consider the weight that has fallen onto his shoulders. “Spider-Man is easily one of the most popular characters in pop culture. The character is so important to so many people that they just want it to be everything that they have in their head. That is super exciting and, at the same time, it’s also unbelievably scary.
“But,” he maintains “I think having that excitement and fear is what has kept us on our toes throughout this whole development process. We are going to make the best game that we possibly can.”
MAN BEHIND THE MASK
It all begins with the man behind the mask. That’s where the best Spider-Man stories have always been born, as Peter Parker’s two worlds collide – the conflict seeping out of every facet of his life, the inevitable fallo
