We had a nice long chat with the director of the upcoming PS5 launch game.
Released in 2018, Marvel's Spider-Man on the PS4 turned out to be not only one of the most technically impressive games on that console, but also one of the most purely entertaining.
Swinging around Manhattan as Peter Parker was so fantastically realised that you rarely used to the fast-travel option, mainly because there was just so much to see and do in the city as you flipped from one skyscraper to the next.
While some of the landmarks were huge and not exactly hidden - the Avengers Tower, for one - some others did require a sharper eye, such as the Wakandan embassy, the Sanctum Santorum, or Ben Parker's grave.
For the sequel, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, we take over the web-shooters as the younger superhero as Parker heads off on a much needed holiday, before things take a turn for the worse and Morales needs to save Manhattan single-handedly.
Again, one of the primary joys of the game is that sense of the discovery around the brilliantly realised version of the island and all of its famous burroughs, as well as the possibility of even more hidden areas and secrets to be discovered.
We were lucky enough to sit down with Brian Horton, director of the game and creative director at Insomnia Games, and asked if players should expect any more surprises:
"Many things! The thing I love about Insomniac Games is that there is a passionate group of developers with some ideas, and they say 'Hey, what do you think about doing this? What do you think about doing that?' So there are Easter Eggs, there are tidbits, there are things that if you explore, or if you're a big fan of Spider-Man lore and comics, there are things you'll discover.
"There are callbacks to classic comic books, and if you go through the city, there are things you can interact with - that we're not calling attention to - that have some sense of a reward.
"So, yes, I would say that our city of Manhattan, which has been completely refactored with this winter season, and the feeling and detail we've put into Harlem, if you continue exploring places that you've been at before, you might find some new stuff. So I encourage exploration."
Spider-Man: Miles Morales will be released on the PS4 on Thursday, November 12, and on the PS5 in Ireland on Thursday, November 19.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T03PxxuCfDA&t=2s
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