At this point, there are some things that are hallmarks of open world games that you just expect from new titles in the genre—a vast world, multiple missions, collectibles and side activities, some systems at play, and constantly passing time, which you have some control over, usually via a resting mechanic that lets you wait till a desired time.
Surprisingly enough, it looks like Spider-Man on PS4 may not have those latter two. Speaking on Twitter, Andrew Reiner, editor of Game Informer, responded to a fan’s query about the feature’s inclusion in the game by stating that, the best that he could tell, the game doesn’t have a dynamic time of the day, and seems to have fixed times for missions and story moments. Whether this also applies to just mucking around in the open world New York City is unknown, but it’d be a bummer if it did—there’s no reason why my Spidey can’t go swinging around in day or night, or day passing into night.
We’ll find out for sure either way when Spider-Man launches exclusively on the PS4 come September 7.