Back when Spider-Man was first announced at E3 2016, the general consensus among people was that Insomniac was the perfect developer to be handling the project. There were several reasons for that, but the one that seemed to come up more often than most was the how brilliantly they’d handled the traversal mechanics of their Xbox One open world title, Sunset Overdrive, and how perfectly similar mechanics would fit in a Spider-Man game.
Spider-Man director Bryan Intihar says that the studio’s work on Sunset Overdrive has indeed informed the development of Spider-Man, and the open world and traversal mechanics seen in the 2014 game have had a huge impact in improving similar mechanics that will be seen in the upcoming PS4 exclusive title.
When asked about the same in an interview with Italian website Everyeye.it, Intihar said, “Yes, and I will also tell you a story about it: I remember reading one of Sunset’s early reviews at the time, and someone had written ‘Seeing what they did here, it would be cool to see Insomniac grapple with a Spider-Man game.’ Let’s say that we took it to the letter, in fact when we were still discussing with Sony I showed them that article, saying ‘you see, we have to do it.’ [laughs] In any case, totally yes, it gave us a great hand.”
“First, that was our first open-world video game: building a city, designing a certain kind of space,” Intihar continued. “That game allowed us to create the New York you see now in Marvel’s Spider-Man: a city much bigger and more complex than that of Sunset Overdrive. There, for example, we did not have NPCs that moved independently in the streets, or cars that moved between the streets, and of course we had to add them. Sunset had an extremely complex geometry, and of course that is a further element that we took from there. But also the movement system, the particular fluidity in the rhythm… these are all things we have taken and conveyed in an experience sewed around Spider-Man, so the answer to your question is a 100% yes.”
Insomniac officially wrapped up development on Spider-Man a couple weeks ago. It launches exclusively for the PS4 on September 7- not long to go now. To tide you over until its imminent launch, watch our feature here to see the fifteen most important details you need to know about the game.