I tend to not care about open world titles that much as it’s exceedingly rare the whole “open world” bit isn’t there just for marketing reasons and to make the game pointlessly longer. And it tends to be that the best open world titles I play are great because they use the whole open world aspect as a backdrop to something that could, for all intents and purposes, have been done without the world being open. But there have been a few exceptions so far, where I enjoyed the open world game for the openness of the world. And my previous go to example used to be [Prototype]. Now that the 2018 PS4 exclusive Marvel’s Spider-Man (in its 2020 PS5 Remastered version) have been finally ported to PC, however, I think I have a new benchmark.
This game isn’t trying to reinvent anything and is, in many ways, the same type of an open world game as, say, Saints Row IV or GTA V. Or the already mentioned [Prototype], if we go further. So you get a huge open map, you get your story missions, you get your side missions, you get a bunch of activities, challenges and collectibles. The skill tree, upgrades or levels isn’t anything new either. In fact, after Assassin’s Creed leaned heavily into it, everyone else started doing it too. Sure, in this game some of the upgrades are nicely presented, as unlockable suits that unlock special powers, except when unlocked the suit and powers can be mixed and matched. It’s neat and probably very exciting for fans of the character and the comic books, as the suits are references to different Spider-Man versions that appeared over the years. But on the surface level, it’s really nothing special.
But the devil is in the details and Marvel’s Spider-Man does what I loved about [Prototype] – it makes exploring the open world and doing the not important activities fun. So fun, in fact, that a lot of these escapades are more exciting than some of the main story missions, which feel far more restrictive and predictable in comparison. Not that they’re bad though (unlike [Prototype]), as the story in this game is genuinely well told. The characters are fun, the writing’s solid, the whole structure is very unconventional for a typical open world game, despite being a perfect fit for an open world game. It’s super smart, really. And fits the whole essence of Spider-Man as a character.
Because from my limited knowledge, the whole point of Spider-Man is that he’s a dude who helps people around him as much and as hard as he can, from finding lost kittens to stopping bank heists. He has his superpowered enemies and the stakes get very high on a bad day, but his schtick isn’t saving the world – it’s stopping ruffians from mugging people around the corner. And that’s how the entire game is structured – like a series of events that slowly but surely escalate out of control, gradually revealing more and more layers of both the story and the open world. Which also means that: a) doing the “side activities” feels like part of the story and the world and b) you are never overwhelmed by them, unless you make a choice to let them pile up.
Additionally, apart from very late game elements and situations, most of the side elements are very smartly succinct and to the point. If it’s a street crime to stop, it’s usually just get to the point, kick a few butts, move on. Things don’t usually have enough time to get repetitive or boring before you’re done with them. And then it’s off to flying across the city again, which is an exciting and engaging process in itself. I can’t even imagine bothering to finish this game if not for the fact, that the basic movement is so fun.
Not for combat, though. The system is similar to the Batman: Arkham games, but with a far higher emphasis on using gadgets and being in the air, as that’s what gives Spider-Man the biggest edge against the enemies, not raw power. A lot of the ideas about this combat system are great and it is good for the most part, but it’s also far more chaotic, both in terms of controls and in terms of visual clutter, than what you’d see in Batman: Arkham, without the extreme tightness and precision of titles from PlatinumGames. So you often get hit either because the action didn’t play out correctly, or because there was no time to react or just because you can’t even see your character on the screen while being comboed by 6 people. It doesn’t help, that you lose health extremely quickly and one missed hit usually leads to several more in a row. So despite having a neat option to heal part of damage at any point as long as you have your special focus meter, combat is usually just “fine” at best. And utterly terrible during boss fights. Those are often just straight up QTE fights pretending to be normal fights, except you don’t know which button is correct most of the time.
Still, though, for 25+ hours I was going around the city, doing 100% of it, enjoying it. It’s fun, it looks great, it runs mostly great on PCs. And even the last act, when the the open world tried to become Arkham City/Arkham Knight (aka the open world you want to not be in), it was fine. And I was happy to go into the DLCs.
Do not play the DLCs. Just don’t. I dropped the game during the second of the three, because I realized that the experience with them is erasing all of my enjoyment I’ve had with the game up until that point and I was starting to outright hate the title. I have no idea how one can make DLCs that miss the point and the flow of the main game so hard, that every single aspect that worked well, turned to unplayable crap. So, seriously, play the main game. And unless you want to ruin your day or start despising the game, ignore the DLCs. They’re there, included with the game, let them be.
Marvel’s Spider-Man isn’t a revolution or such an amazing game you should drop everything and play it. But it is the best example (that I can think of) of an open world singleplayer game, where the open world is the fun part, while the linear story bits are quite good as well. If you have an allergy for open world titles in general, I doubt this title will change your mind. But if you’re just usually bored with huge worlds in these action adventure titles, you might finally get a confirmation that it can, in fact, be fun and not pointless. I’m glad this title is finally available on PC and would be curious to see where Insomniac will take the series next.