About

Marvel's Spider-Man is a 2018 Spider-Man video game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4. The game's release date is September 7, 2018. The game features a standalone plot, not based on prior Spider-Man films or comics. Prior to release, fans of the game were upset over an apparent graphics downgrade between the game's 2017 E3 Trailer and 2018 footage.

History

Marvel's Spider-Man is directed by Brian Horton, Bryan Intihar, Marcus Smith, and Ryan Smith.^[1] Of note, it is the first licensed property to be developed by Insomniac Games, who are best known for developing independent properties like Spyro and Ratchet and Clank. The game was announced at E3 2016 (first trailer shown below).

The game was announced for a 2017 release in April 2017 but was pushed back to 2018 at Sony's 2017 E3 Conference. A release date of September 7th, 2018 was later confirmed.

Graphics Controversy

The Spider-Man Graphics Downgrade Controversy, also known as "Puddlegate" refers to accusations the game received a graphical downgrade between its 2017 E3 trailer and 2018 release. On August 3rd, 2018, YouTuber Cycu1 uploaded a video titled "Spider-Man PS4 2017 vs 2018 Early Graphics Comparison," which compared clips from the E3 reveal to new gameplay footage (shown below, left).

On August 20th, Twitter user @spiydaman tweeted two pictures comparing shots from 2017 to 2018 footage of the game. In response, the @insomniacgames feed replied that it was "just a change in the puddle size, there’s no downgrade at all" (shown below).

On August 30th, Redditor Ghulam submitted a similar comparison picture comparing E3 footage to release footage from the game to /r/gaming,^[1] where it garnered upwards of 29,900 points (81% upvoted) and 3,100 comments within 24 hours. In the comments section, many Redditors mocked the difference in size between the puddles in the two images. Additionally, Redditor Kmart99 replied claiming to be a "3D Rendering artist" and argued that the differences were most likely attributed to lighting changes.^[2]

That day, IGN host Brian Altano posted a tweet mocking gamers who took issue with the graphics, comparing the differences to promotional photographs from McDonald's (shown below, left). In response, Twitter user @GamingAndPandas accused media outlets of "stanning for large companies to imply that consumers are at fault for being lied to (shown below, right).

Reception

The game received overwhelmingly positive reviews prior to release, receiving a score of 87/100 on Metacritic based on reviews from over 90 critics.^[2] The most positive critics called it arguably a defining game of the generation. Critics also praised the story and mechanics, the latter of which has been a notorious issue with many Spider-Man games save for Spider-Man 2 (2004). The game was nominated for Best Action Game at 2018 Gamescom and won Best Console Game Sony Playstation 4 prior to release. IGN's video review for the game gained over 1.6 million views (shown below, left) and Gamespot's review gained over 400,000 views (shown below, right).

Online Presence

Prior to the game's release, it generated a solid community of interested gamers online. The game gained over 11,000 likes on Facebook as of September 6th, 2018.^[3] A subreddit about the game generated over 27,000 subscribers prior to the game's release.^[5] Jim Sterling offered his impressions on the game on YouTube, gaining over 200,000 views (shown below, left). Gameplay and tech analysis by DigitalFoundry gained over 298,000 views (shown below, right). A thread on /r/PS4^[4] about the game's stellar scores gained over 7,000 points.

Fans also created memes about the game. For example, an edit in /r/SpidermanPS4 referencing Spider-Man 3 gained over 3,300 points (shown below, left). A Let Me Guess, Your Home? edit posted to /r/raimimemes gained over 2,500 points (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References