We are now less than a month away from the release of Marvel’s Avengers, the superhero game based on the popular franchise. But it’s been a bit of a sour path for some people, as it was announced that one of the most popular superheroes on the team, Spider-Man, would be exclusive to PlayStation versions of the game (alongside several other exclusives to PS4 and PS5). How exactly did it come to be? Well, the game’s developer tried to explain it, and it seems that it was just out of their hands.
Talking to ComicBook.com, Crystal Dynamics Co-Head Scot Amos talked about the exclusive deal and said that he understood why some people were less than happy about the deal, but then reassured them that all versions of the game will have a lot of content, and also seems to imply that there is some degree of rights ownership with Sony and PlayStation to the webslinger.
“So the beauty of Spider-Man, and what Spider-Man represents as a character, and as a world is… Again, it comes back to the relationship with PlayStation and Marvel,” Amos said. “We happened to be… once you can execute and deliver, when it comes down to choices of where and what Spider-Man can be, that’s a relationship question that PlayStation absolutely has the rights to, that as you guys know, with Sony’s ownership there, and Marvel with Sony saying, ‘Hey, this is something we can do. This is something we can do on this platform.'”
It’s something many speculated when the announcement was made due to Sony making the Spider-Man adaptation for PS4 as an exclusive in 2018. Though, it’s never been explicitly stated that Sony has any ownership of the character for video games (though it’s known that Sony studios owns the film license for the property), and there’s been some inconsistencies such as Spider-Man being available in the Switch exclusive Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 last year. But it seems as if Sony has leveraged rights to the character in gaming to some degree.
Marvel’s Avengers will launch for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC and Stadia on September 4th, with PS5 and Xbox Series X versions coming later. A beta is set to begin for PS4 preorders on August 7th, but we got an early look at it, and you can read our thoughts through here.