‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ Twin Towers Theory Debunked

An interesting theory has emerged for Marvel’s Spider-Man on PlayStation 4, with an odd little video on Imgur potentially showing the Twin Towers within the game, reflected in a building window, but not really there. But is this real? According to Polygon, it isn’t.

Many fans came up with a theory that Insomniac Games included this as a potential tribute to the World Trade Center from 9/11, followed up the fact that you could scale the building and then see the Freedom Tower in the game (well, not the actual Freedom Tower). Many felt it would be a compelling thing if it were real, but, according to Polygon, it isn’t.

The team first took a close look at a Digital Foundry video and discovered that Insomniac utilized a reflection technique called “cube mapping,” which is built from a library of still images that represent the gaming world. The surfaces then pull from said library, although “what they pull is generally not a true-to-life reflection of what’s around them; it’s an approximation,” according to the author. In a nutshell, buildings that appear in a reflection aren’t in the actual game world. (No, it’s not a weird Spidey-verse thing.)

So here’s the theory. “Oddly enough, the left tower in the reflection is the one that Spider-Man is climbing. Yes, a building is ‘reflected’ onto its own surface. The other tower is directly on the right. It clearly has the same distinctive paneling, and both towers are terraced on their lower levels, which the Twin Towers were not.”

They also note that “the view of the Freedom Tower stand-in is just a beautiful coincidence. Humans don’t like coincidences — we try to find meaning and patterns in just about everything we look at.”

Even without the Twin Towers, though, Insomniac did include a nod through a “canonical event,” according to Polygon. “Near its rendition of Battery Park, you can encounter tour guides talking about citizen boats evacuating Manhattan after the events of 9/11.”

Insomniac hasn’t said anything yet on what’s going on, but hopefully we’ll get the lowdown soon. In the meantime, you can also check out the video above from Polygon (hosted by Patrick Gill, aka @Pizza_Suplex — and now we want that Twitter name) that breaks things down even further.

Spider-Man is available now for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 4 Pro.

(Hat tip to Polygon for the details and video!)