Peter Parker Is Broke and Struggling in Spider-Man PS4

Insomniac Games' Spider-Man isn't too far off from its release on the PlayStation 4, and while it will feature a heavy focus on the heroic web-slinger, it certainly won't forget about the human side of the story -- Peter Parker.

As part of its month-long coverage on the forthcoming comic book adventure, Game Informer has posted a new interview with the game's writers, who talk about focusing on both Spidey and Peter Parker over the course of the adventure, and how important it is to have balance between the two.

"This is a Peter Parker story. That is not Miles in that suit, which is a question everyone keeps asking me on twitter," creative director Bryan Intihar explained. "He still gets bit by a spider, but we don't really want to go big into the origin story."

"We all knew that people have seen the origin story before, right? We know what that teenage Peter Parker is about. We didn't want to tell a story that had already been told," Insomniac writer Jon Paquette noted, possibly hinting at the direction that last year's film release of Spider-Man: Homecoming took, diving more into the main story instead of telling the origin story for an umpteenth time.

"Obviously, he should feel like the classic Spider-Man and Peter Parker everyone knows, but we're doing our own thing. We don't have to worry about the other stuff. Let's just do the best, most iconic Spider-Man story we can do," Christos Gage, a veteran of Spider-Man and Marvel Comics, explained.

When we first meet Peter Parker in the game, he's been bitten by the radioactive spider, though he's reached the age of 23 and understands what all of his abilities can do. "He's on the verge of becoming an adult, and he's dealing with a lot of the things people at that age dealing with – student loans, trying to start a career, struggling with money – any number of things," Intihar said.

Paquette added, "One of the talks we had was about what it was like to be in your early twenties, just out of college, you thought you could take on the world, you had all this passion and energy for changing the world, and you didn't have the cynicism that I have now in my forties."

The main goal was to take a fresh route with both Spidey and Parker, instead of treading on the all-too-familiar territory. "That was really liberating," Gage noted, "I have worked on video games in the past that were tied to movie releases and they were good and I enjoyed them, but at the same time you are bound to an external thing, where here we get to do our own thing. It was like when my wife and I were writing for the first season Daredevil. You have 50 years of great source material to draw from, but you're doing your own thing."

Oh, and don't worry -- Spidey is as smarmy as he's ever been. "There are infinitely more one-liners," Gage confirmed.

But, at the end of the day, it was about balancing the two so that the story wasn't about more of one than the other. "That's something we didn't want to lose, even though he has more experience," Intihar concluded.

You can read the full interview here, and it's well worth your time.

Spider-Man releases on November 7 for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro.

(Big hat tip to Game Informer for the scoop!)