We’ve all probably played a Spider Man game before, whether they were created as movie-adaptations or not. However this may be the first time ever that the development team behind the game worked so closely with the producers of the movie to try and make sure that everything flows perfectly and is created just as one would see in the movie itself. In the behind-closed-doors presentation for The Amazing Spider Man we learned that the game itself will actually take place after the events of the movie.
This has allowed the creators to not only have more creative freedom with the storyline, but also to re-imagine a number of enemy origin stories. You see, rather than put an end to their genetic research, Oscorp has continued to do so. As such this has created a number of human-animal hybrids which have begun rampaging around the city. By working closely with Marvel & Sony the developers revealed that everything shown in the game is actually going to be accepted as canon, though how exactly was not explained.
Players will be stepping into the suit of Spider Man in a brand new way, as the camera angle will actually follow very closely on Spider Man so that it actually makes the player feel as if they were him. This close camera angle is quite amazing in motion, especially whenever the player is swinging around Manhattan due to the fact that it will often feel like a roller coaster with the rise and fall of the camera angle. It is great that swinging around on webs is as fun as ever, considering the development team has made The Amazing Spider Man open world once again, allowing players to explore all of Manhattan and do various side-missions and gather collectibles (comic book pages which unlock full digital classic comic books) as well.
A number of Spider Mans abilities have been modified to adjust to his new background in The Amazing Spider Man. For example, rather than having an infinite amount of webbing he can produce from his body, Spider Man will actually have to reload his webbing canisters (though these are infinite as well thanks to product testing). What makes this mechanic interesting is the fact that Spider Man will occasionally slip his hand to his belt to reload when necessary, which is something never before shown in a Spider Man game. Also added into the game is an auto-catch system so that players won’t need to worry about dying from a long-distance fall.
Besides these small adjustments, the combat system and navigation system have been majorly overhauled. Rather than creating large web hammers etc, Spider Man will be fighting with flips, kicks, punches and more. The new fighting style is actually stylized after the Lucha Libre style of wrestling, focusing more on acrobatic attacks than anything else. The adjustment to navigation is the newly crated Web Rush system which places the camera into a first-person view behind Spider Man’s mask as he seeks out highlighted areas that he can leap or swing to. This allows players to navigate around the city with the same type of acrobatics that was previously only performable during cut-scenes or quick time events.
During the presentation we were shown that Web Rush is also context specific, as players can immediately start side-missions by jumping to a mission start point, or swing between light poles before jumping onto a speeding getaway car and taking it out. Also shown in this presentation was the new way most of the animal-human hybrids will appear. While Rhino previously wore an armored suit in Spider Man lore, he will actually now be a human/rhino hybrid with armor growing out of his body and horns on top of his head. After witnessing an interesting, albeit repetitive battle against Rhino we were introduced to “Hunters” which have been sent out from Oscorp to try and wrangle up or kill all of the hybrids roaming the city, including Spider Man. To fight off the Hunter Spider Man started to battle against it while in the air, swinging between buildings in some rather impressive mid-air combat. Now we’ve all seen movie tie-ins or adaptations before, but this one may just be one that will go in the must play category depending how the rest of the game turns out on June 26th when it hits store shelves.
