‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ Video Shows How Insomniac Games Perfected Web-Swinging

Marvel Entertainment’s newest video shows off some beautiful web-slinging scenes in Marvel’s Spider-Man and explains what Insomniac Games did to perfect the game’s web-based travel system.

From the time that Marvel’s Spider-Man was announced to the week of its release, people have been talking about the web-swinging mechanics and wondering how it stacked up to other games. Spider-Man 2 was the game most often brought up with discussing web-swinging with those who remembered that game fondly wondering if this latest PlayStation 4 exclusive felt at all similar to that game’s web system.

While that game wasn’t mentioned specifically in Marvel Entertainment’s video, Insomniac Games and Marvel spoke about how important it was to perfect web-slinging with Insomniac Games creative director Bryan Intihar saying that it was the “number one thing [they] had to get right in making a Spider-Man experience.” Bill Rosemann, executive creative director at Marvel Games, spoke about how getting the web-slinging right was essential to making players feel like they were actually Spider-Man.

“To deliver that wish fulfillment of being Spider-Man,” he began, “you want to be able to use your webs and take you up into the air. To spin, all over the city, leap, do a swan dive, almost hit the ground and swing back up into the sky. That’s Spider-Man.”

Referring again to the fantasy fulfillment of being Spider-Man, Intihar said that swinging through the concrete jungle that is New York was key to their game. Ryan Smith, game director at Insomniac Games, said that they knew the swinging had to be physics-based where players can connect to a building or other object with a web and start the pendulum motion. Running up building and leaping off of their rooftops, Intihar said, was another mechanic they added to make sure nothing stood in players’ ways when they’re traversing the city.

Smith added that there are also different layers to the web-swinging mechanics that’ll satisfy both new and veteran players. The control scheme is simple enough to pick up on quickly, he said, but those who practice their moves will find themselves using web-zips, swan dives, and other advanced and stylish tactics.

Crafting the web-swinging system wasn’t without its challenges though, and Insomniac Games art director Jacinda Chew said that one of issues that the game’s creators encountered dealt with fire escapes. Teams didn’t players to get hung up on them while swinging around the city, but leaving them out would make it feel like something was missing from New York. The result was a mechanic where Spider-Man can zip right through the fire escapes as he encounters them to keep going out the other side.

Marvel’s Spider-Man releases for the PlayStation 4 on Sept. 7th.