Spider-Man (2018 video game)

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Marvel's Spider-Man is a Playstation 4-exclusive Wide Open Sandbox superhero game, developed by Insomniac Games and starring the titular Spider-Man in a universe completely separate of any other Marvel property. It takes place eight years into Peter Parker's career as Spider-Man, who is currently in the process of subduing and arresting the infamous Wilson Fisk, NYC's Kingpin of Crime and a persistent thorn in his side ever since he took up the mantle of a superhero. When he's being hauled away by the police, Fisk ominously warns Spider-Man that he was the one keeping the city in order, and that Spidey will beg for him to come back once the city loses itself to chaos. Unimpressed, the web-slinger anticipates being able to catch a break now that one of his biggest enemies is safely behind bars...

Too bad Willy's prediction was right on the money: now that Kingpin's out of the picture, plenty of small-time criminals are seeking to take advantage of the power vacuum he left behind and a massive crime wave ensues. And so far, the ones looking to rise to the top are the Demons, a mysterious gang of creepy, masked Chinese mobsters with strange powers who are obsessively hunting for something called "Devil's Breath." Can Spider-Man put a stop to this new threat? Can he keep his friends and loved ones out of harm's way? And just what is this "Devil's Breath" anyway? You'll have to play to find out, True Believers! Or read this page, of course.

The game would prove to be a massive success, and would receive not only follow up DLC in the form of the City That Never Sleeps package, but a psuedo-sequel called Spider-Man: Miles Morales as well as a proper sequel that is currently in the works.

Tropes used in Spider-Man (2018 video game) include:
  • Action Prologue: The game opens with Spider-Man helping the NYPD storm Fisk Tower, where Kingpin puts up a hell of a fight by employing a small army of armed thugs while blowing up parts of his building in hopes of making a clean escape. The player gets to experience the thrill of playing as Spider-Man in his prime, and the act of beating the crap out of Kingpin's goons, rescuing the people trapped by the debris of his crumbling building, and beating down the Kingpin himself as the first boss all makes for a memorable experience to establish just what kind of game you'll be playing.
  • Adaptational Heroism: Norman Obsorn is still a sleazy scumbag, but he is not the heartless sociopath that his comic counterpart is: he's a committed family man still mourning the death of his wife and is moving mountains to save his son from the same disease that killed Emily. He also genuinely likes Peter without propping him up as the ideal son to shame Harry with, and was good to both him and MJ during their childhood. While he becomes something of a ruthless tyrant once he hires Sable International to patrol the streets of Manhattan, his villainy tends to stem from well-intended idiocy rather than genuine malice.
    • Tombstone is also a lot friendlier than most incarnations. While he's willing to kill Spider-Man for getting in the way of his criminal enterprise, he's a smooth, chill guy who makes a lot of friendly small-talk with Spidey during his boss fight, and even admits that he'd happily clean up his act if it paid better.
    • A minor example in the form of Eddie Brock: one of the collectibles is a goodbye card that Peter's friends and boss at the Daily Bugle signed when he left. Eddie's signature is among them and his farewell message is as chummy and friendly as everyone else's, meaning that he and Peter were and likely still are on good terms. The ending also heavily hints that he won't be Venom in this continuity, since Harry is shown with the Venom symbiote in a medical capsule.
  • Adaptational Villainy: Hammerhead was hardly a saint in the comics, but he's an absolutely evil son of a bitch in the DLC, where he's more than happy to blow Manhattan to pieces by arming his men with destructive Sable Tech, brutally murders plenty of cops for the sake of antagonizing one, tries to drown a bunch of rival crime lords in cement, and steals humanitarian aid to a country that needs it just to be a dick.
  • Adorkable: Spider-Man is as lovably dorky as one would expect, which is best shown in his hilariously awkward, yet sweet interactions with MJ and his amusing Spider-Cop Running Gag with Yuri, the latter of which has him acting like a grizzled private eye much to her amusement and annoyance.
    • The way Miles Morales fanboys over Spidey is similarly adorable, which makes him becoming a fellow Spider-Man and Peter's student in the art of ass-kicking so much more satisfying.
  • Affably Evil: Mr. Negative is a polite smooth-talker who runs a homeless shelter, and genuinely enjoys his role in helping the homeless. He's so likable that it's easy to forget that he's the ringleader of a gang of superpowered terrorists seeking to unleash a bioweapon on Manhattan.
    • Tombstone is similarly polite and well-spoken, and tries to coax Spider-Man to his side while making pleasant small-talk with the guy.
  • Air Vent Passageway: In true Spider-Man fashion, the web-slinger crawls up a number of conveniently spacious air vents as a way to bypass locked doors.
  • Ax Crazy: By the end of the game, Mr. Negative is reduced to an unhinged, violent maniac who has all but forgotten the kind, charitable man he once was. It's clear that his hatred for Norman and his mix of grief and guilt regarding his parents' deaths have not done his sanity any favors.
    • Doctor Octopus is similarly so consumed with hatred for Norman Osborn that he's not only okay with unleashing dangerous villains and a bioweapon on Manhattan, but is downright gleeful at the prospect of tearing Spidey, who he KNOWS is Peter Parker, his best friend who is practically a son to him, to shreds.
    • Then there's the lesser members of the Sinister Six, most of which are this to some extent. Scorpion loves torturing and poisoning people, Electro loves wreaking havoc and wants to become a being of pure energy, and Rhino is a foul-tempered tank of a man who will kill and smash things at the smallest provocation.
  • Baby Got Back: Black Cat may not be showing off a ton of cleavage like most versions of the character, but the amount of shots dedicated to showing off how her spandex flatters her big butt more than make up for it.
  • Badass Grandpa: Vulture may take a lot of abuse in cutscenes, but he's still a dangerous supervillain who age hasn't slowed down in the slightest.
  • Badass Normal: Jefferson Davis is just a normal cop, but can keep up with Spider-Man when they're fighting off the Demons ambushing them at Fisk's shipyard arms cache. Silver Sable is also a scarily competent fighter who gives Spidey a run for his money both times they fight, despite just being a very, very skilled martial artist and gunslinger.
  • Bad Boss: As to be expected, quite a few of Spidey's enemies are this.
    • Kingpin tends to swing between this and benevolent: on one hand, he's grateful enough to point Spidey in Mr. Negative's direction when he saves his men from being killed by the Demons. On the other hand, he's rude and domineering towards them during his boss fight and small-talk heard during hideout infiltrations make it clear that he'll happily kill them for failing him.
    • Doctor Octopus is not impressed by Mr. Negative's failure to beat Spider-Man during their final battle, and attacks him while dismissing him as "worthless."
    • Hammerhead's men are all disposable to him, and his lieutenants are expected to eliminate lower-ranking goons who screw up. When his men are being outfitted for Project Olympus cybernetics, he doesn't give a damn that there's a high fatality rate and simply puts any who die in body bags and callously tosses them into the sewers.
    • Tombstone seems set up to be this since his very first scene has him killing one of his henchmen, but said henchman seriously screwed up a job and refused to accept responsibility and fix it until it was too late. He's pretty good to his men otherwise.
  • Bald of Evil: Kingpin, Tombstone, Electro, Doc Ock... quite a few of Spidey's enemies seem to have hair-loss issues in this game.
  • Big Applesauce: As one would expect from a Spider-Man game, the game is set in good ol' NYC which has been lovingly recreated (if scaled down) with amazing attention to detail.
  • Black Dude Dies First: Jefferson Davis is the game's first major casualty.
  • Bloodless Carnage: There's a surprising amount of onscreen violence: Spidey gets impaled twice, a suicide via gunshot is shown on screen, the middle act is kicked off by a chillingly realistic terrorist attack... but the amount of blood shown is kept to a minimum.
  • Bonus Boss: Tombstone and Taskmaster are divorced from the main storyline's conflict, and are fought in side missions.
  • Broken Pedestal: After Otto goes off the deep end and becomes the monstrous Doctor Octopus, Peter holds out hope that he can get through to him and make him remember the kind-hearted man he once was. Once it becomes clear that Otto always knew Peter was Spider-Man and was planning to destroy Manhattan from the start, Peter is driven to furious tears as he rips into Otto for betraying his ideals and becoming a mass murderer in the process.
  • Casting Gag: Electro is voiced by Josh Keaton, who has gone from Spider-Man to one of his foes. Amusingly, Norman Osborn is now voiced by Mark Rolston, who was the voice of DC's own corporate mogul supervillain Lex Luthor in Young Justice.
  • Comic Book Fantasy Casting: While he's modeled after an actual person (John Bubniak), this incarnation of Peter Parker looks like a cross between his actors from the Amazing Spider-Man and MCU movies, Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland respectively. In the PS5 rerelease, his new face (modeled from Ben Jordan) looks more like a pure Tom Holland copy.
    • Norman Osborn meanwhile looks like a cross between his own live action actors Willem Dafoe and Chris Cooper respectively, as well as a bit of Donald Trump thrown in for good measure.
  • Cool Old Guy: Mick, the friendly cook who's happy to see Peter and MJ together again. But what else would you expect from Stan Lee?
    • Aunt May is a Cool Old Gal, and spends her time working at Martin Li's F.E.A.S.T center and helping the homeless. She's even charitable enough to let Peter crash in her office and give him several hundred dollars when he's evicted from his apartment.
  • Darker and Edgier: Oh yeah. The game may start out lighthearted enough, but once the demons suicide bomb City Hall everything gets worse: Mr. Negative tries to unleash a bioweapon, Dr. Octopus succeeds, a suicide by gunshot happens on screen, Aunt May dies, and we get some of the rawest displays of emotion from Spider-Man seen in any form of media.
  • Defiant to the End: When Otto kidnaps Norman and tries to force him to admit to all is wrongdoings for the world to see, Norman opts to insult the man to his face and mock him for being a failure, which almost gets him killed before Spidey's timely intervention. Say what you will about Norman, but the man's got serious balls.
  • Degraded Boss: After defeating the Kingpin, Brute enemies start showing up who have Kingpin's heavyset build and fighting style, requiring similar techniques to take down.
  • Difficult but Awesome: The ability you get from unlocking the Undies suit is Equalizer, which lets you one-shot any non-boss enemy... with the drawback that you die in one hit. It has a steep learning curve, but it lets more experienced Spider-Men tear their way through dangerous mobs of enemies as well as Hideouts in no time flat.
  • Dirty Cop: Mostly averted since the NYPD stands in as a more lawful, protective alternative to the trigger-happy, fascist Sable International goons, but a squad of corrupt cops try to take out Spider-Man right before Kingpin's boss fight.
  • Dual Boss: Two-thirds of the Sinister Six are fought like this: Spidey fights Electro and Vulture in a pitched airborne battle where they get along swimmingly, while Rhino and Scorpion are fought at the docks with both being incredibly antagonistic towards one another.
  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Martin Li may be okay with racking up enormous amounts of collateral damage in his war against Osborn, but he genuinely views Aunt May as a friend and doesn't want her to get hurt. He's also fighting to avenge his parents, who were killed when an Oscorp-sanctioned experiment caused his powers to go berserk and kill them on accident.
    • Norman Osborn is a widower who never recovered from the death of his wife, and is similarly troubled by Harry's sickness, and is working tirelessly to cure him.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Once the Demons bomb city hall and get more destructive from there, Spidey sadly notes that while Kingpin was a monster himself, he loved New York and never would have caused such wanton destruction.
  • Evil Albino: Tombstone is an albino black man who hits like a truck, tanks hits like they're nothing, and towers over Spidey during their boss fight. He is however pretty chill and respectful.
  • Evil Doppelgänger: Spider-Man believes that this is happening when he finds out that someone's been impersonating him, but the Copycat Spider-Man is a decent guy who just wants to do his part to fight crime in New York, even if it almost gets himself killed in the process. During that mission though, he implies that The Chameleon pulled off something like this in the past.
  • Fair Cop: Yuri Watanabe is a cop and incredibly hot in an older tomboy sort of way.
  • Fat Bastard Kingpin, though like in the comics he merely appears to be fat and is actually heavily muscular. The Brute enemies seem to be a straighter example, though.
  • Faux Affably Evil: Scorpion and Hammerhead like to present themselves as well-mannered and likable, but there's a lot of barely-hidden sleaze and sadism behind their kind words, and it doesn't take long for the mask to slip and show them as the brutal thugs they really are.
  • Fiery Redhead: This game's incarnation of MJ, who's a spunky journalist that is unafraid of putting herself in dangerous situations to uncover the truth, and gives Peter an earful on more than one occasion for being protective of her.
  • Foregone Conclusion: The moment Otto Octavius shows up, you know it's only a matter of time before he goes full-super villain, it's just a matter of when it'll happen. Unfortunately, it happens at the end of the game and he goes way off the deep end in his vendetta against Norman Osborn.
  • Giant Mook: Brutes are hulking brawlers who can't be hurt unless they're webbed up or slid under, and can't be thrown around unless you have a specific upgrade.
  • The Guards Must Be Crazy: Somehow, Silver Sable's elite mercenaries are woefully bad at finding Mary Jane, who infiltrates their bases and crosses paths with them multiple times and regularly outsmarts them, despite being a normal journalist without military training.
  • Hate Sink: Scorpion and Hammerhead are the most vile villains in the game, and not only commit horrible atrocities but are downright petty and cruel to the people they terrorize, giving the player someone to hate while the main villains are far more sympathetic.
  • The Heavy: He isn't the final threat of the game, but Mr. Negative drives a good chunk of the plot with his terrorist attacks on the city and is the most visible threat until Doc Ock joins the fray.
  • Hope Spot: For players who have gotten attached to the lovable Otto, seeing Peter convince him not to continue wearing the Neural Interface due to the brain damage it could cause will make them breath a sigh of relief... only for Otto to angrily put it back on after seeing Norman Osborn sleaze it up on TV.
  • Husky Russkie: Rhino is a huge, heavily armored Russian criminal complete with thick accent, broken English, and love of wanton destruction and violence.
  • Incompetence, Inc.: For a top-of-the-line PMC, Sable International does a terrible job at maintaining order in the city. When they aren't violating people's civil liberties or abusing their emergency powers, they're constantly being humiliated by Mr. Negative and the Inner Demons. Almost every single person being targeted by the Demons dies on their watch, they get the deadly Devil's Breath bioweapon stolen from them twice, and they'd much rather focus on arresting or killing Spider-Man than trying to stop the Sinister Six from wreaking havoc after the mass breakout from the Raft. They're so bad at what they do that Norman Osborn rightfully tells Silver Sable that he's in more danger with her men than he is without.
  • Ironic Echo: "You knew?" It shows up twice barely fifteen minutes between each instance, with each carrying far different connotations. The first is rage, when Peter realizes that Otto knew he was Spider-Man the entire time but still betrayed his trust and tried to murder him anyway, the second is sadness when Aunt May reveals on her death bed that she always knew Peter was Spider-Man, and is proud of her nephew for all the good he's done.
  • Jerkass: Scorpion is a raging asshole who constantly insults and belittles Rhino during their boss fight.
  • Jerk With a Heart of Gold: J. Jonah Jameson is a loud-mouthed asshole who makes a lot of ridiculous leaps in logic to accuse Spider-Man of every crime under the sun in his radio broadcasts, but he's also a decent man who genuinely loves New York and isn't afraid to call out Norman Osborn and Sable International for abusing their powers during the Devil's Breath crisis.
  • Joke Weapon: The "Quips" suit power you get from unlocking the Vintage Comic Book Suit is a literal example: Spidey cracks his usual corny jokes. This seems like it would be useless in battle, but amazingly enough, you can get a surprising amount of utility from it.
    • Lethal Joke Weapon: Spidey's jokes are so corny that they cause enemies to stagger, which can let you get free hits on Brutes and crowbar/baton/scythe wielding thugs without having to jump through any hoops.
  • Kevlard: Thanks to their girth, Kingpin and the Brute enemies shrug off most head-on attacks like they're nothing, and need to be incapacitated or hit with throwable objects for you to really start bringing the hurt on them.
  • Large Ham: J. Jonah Jameson, as always. This version is a radio talk show host who loves to ham it up when he insults and belittles Spider-Man for every reason he can think of.
  • Made of Iron: Spider-Man takes an inhuman amount of punishment in the game's climax: he's brutally beaten by the Sinister Six during the Raft escape that ends with him breaking 14 bones, and he's even forced to let Doc Ock impale him during the final boss fight. Thanks to his healing factor, he's able to walk it off.
  • Malevolent Masked Man: The Demons are a gang made entirely by terrorists wearing eerie Chinese demon masks. However, Martin Li/Mr. Negative, their leader, never wears one.
    • Shocker and Taskmaster are both masked supervillains, but Shocker isn't really malevolent so much as he is desperately trying to help the people blackmailing him back into villainy.
  • Mayor Pain: Norman Osborn is the mayor of NYC in this continuity, and he's an utter sleazeball who, while having a point to cutting off Octavius' funding, is clearly doing so just to undermine him. After the City Hall Bombing, he contracts Sable International to have its goons patrol the streets, and they waste no time in violating people's civil liberties and brutalizing civilians while tossing them into detention centers. He even blames Spider-Man for the Devil's Breath outbreak and the prison breaks at the Raft and Ryker's Island, forcing Spidey to have to deal with Sable International gunning for his head while fighting the escaped convicts and supervillains as well.
  • Mercy Invincibility: Ha ha... no. Every hit you take counts meaning that you need to be quick on your feet, or even the game's weaker enemies will kill you in seconds.
  • Mind Control Eyes: Victims of Mr. Negative's hypnosis show this.
  • More Dakka: The DLC's introduce Brute with miniguns. As you'd expect, they hurt. A LOT.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Black Cat, as always. She's as flirty and shapely as ever, and is confirmed to have had sex with Peter at least once given that her lies about having a son with him are credible to Peter.
  • Never My Fault: J. Jonah Jameson refuses to accept any responsibility for Scorpion's villainy despite funding the experiments that bonded Mac Gargan with his deadly suit. Granted, he does have a point that he had no way of knowing that Gargan was a lunatic, but he's still somewhat culpable, if unintentionally.
  • Noble Demon: Tombstone almost comes off as a decent guy despite the whole "dangerous leader of a biker gang" thing. He's polite and respectful towards Spider-Man, and would be more than happy to leave his life of crime behind if being good paid better.
    • What little we know of this universe's version of Sandman paints him as this: when he tried to rob a F.E.A.S.T shelter, he left the place alone after getting a stern talking-to from Aunt May. It's certainly in line with his comic counterpart, who was always one of Spidey's nobler foes to the point that he successfully pulled off a Heel Face Turn for years... until editorial mandates reversed his development.
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed: J. Jonah Jameson acts a lot like the controversial talk show host Alex Jones, and runs a podcast where he espouses all kinds of insane conspiracy theories. However, most of the crazy talk begins and ends with his obsessive hate for Spider-Man, and he does raise more than a few good points while also showing genuine care for New York and its populace.
  • Precision F-Strike: Most of the swearing doesn't get much worse beyond a few "Damns" and "Ass-"es, but one of Tombstone's goons will yell "Who left their shit on the floor" while MJ is infiltrating his hideout, likely as a way to capture stereotypical biker grittiness.
  • Psycho Electro: Mainstay Spider-Man villain Electro is a villain in this game, and is a destructive lunatic obsessed with wanting to become a being of pure energy.
  • Reality Ensues: If you forget to pay your rent, you can expect to be unceremoniously kicked out your home in short notice. Poor Peter learns this the hard way, and spends a good chunk of the game homeless.
    • Putting a crime boss as well-connected and influential as Wilson Fisk in jail doesn't mean you've put a stop to all the crime he's overseen. A good chunk of the game's side missions involve shutting down the operations Fisk left running in his wake, as well as foiling an escape attempt he's been orchestrating from behind bars.
    • Similarly, when a crime boss as high up on the totem pole as Fisk is arrested or otherwise disposed of, plenty of lesser criminals will jump in and try to fill in the void he's left behind.
    • If you fail to stop a random crime on the street, there's no redoing it: you have to live with your failure and endure J. Jonah Jameson raking you over the coals for it.
  • Rhino Rampage: As any Spider-Man fan would expect, Rhino's a violent brute infamous for the obscene amount of destruction caused by his rampages.
  • Roaring Rampage Of Revenge: Mr. Negative, Dr. Octopus, and in the DLC, Yuri are ALL driven by this in their line of villainy: the former two hate Norman Osborn and are willing to do whatever it takes to bring him down due to him screwing them over in the past, and the latter is obsessed with killing the Maggia and similar criminals after Hammerhead kills a ton of good cops.
  • Sadistic Choice: At the end of the game, Peter is forced to choose if he wants to use all of the Devil's Breath cure to save Aunt May's life, or let her die so the cure can be replicated and save thousands of infected. He ultimately chooses the latter, and is horribly eaten up about it.
  • Scary Black Man: Tombstone, who's a hulking giant of a man with impenetrable skin and freakish strength, and is a dangerous crime lord to boot.
  • Scenery Porn: The streets of Manhattan are gorgeously rendered, as are the various building interiors you can explore. Hell, even the nightmarish hellscapes you visit while under the influence of Scorpion's hallucigenic venom look great.
  • Sequel Hook: When MJ explores Norman's penthouse, she finds a vaguely monstrous-looking helmet and grenades laying around. It's safe to say that while he hasn't gone full-Green Goblin yet, it's only a matter of time before Spidey comes to blows with old Stormin' Norman.
    • The ending also shows that Norman's keeping Harry in a medical tank in suspended animation. And his life support system? Oh it's nothing too weird, just the VENOM SYMBIOTE which has attached to Harry and can already control his body. As if Norman's unraveling sanity and prototype Green Goblin equipment weren't bad enough...
    • Also related to the ending, Miles has developed Spider powers of his own, and Peter takes him under his wing after he shows them off to him.
    • While not necessarily sequel-related, the photography side mission has you snapping photos of places such as Avengers Tower, Murdock and Nelson Law Offices, the Wakandan Embassy, and the Sanctum Santorum. This establishes that there are other superheroes in this universe, and opens up the possiblities of seeing them in action in potential spinoffs.
  • Take That: Norman Osborn and J. Jonah Jameson are definitely meant to be unflattering caricatures of Donald Trump and Alex Jones respectively, but in a twist of fate they aren't entirely negative either. While they embody many highly-criticized aspects of both men (Trump and Norman being shady New York businessmen who become controversial politicians involved in all kinds of questionably legal activities, Jonah and Alex's conspiracy theories) they have plenty of good traits to their characters and actually feel properly fleshed out instead of just being one-note caricatures for the audience to hate and/or laugh at.
    • In Spidey's social media feed, a mom slags Spider-Man for not saving her child's balloon which is a jab towards the infamously hated balloon-rescue missions from the Spider-Man 2 movie tie-in game.
    • Screwball is meant to embody everything that's wrong with modern streaming culture, and is portrayed as a stupid, obnoxious clout chaser who forces Spider-Man to dance to her whims so she can post videos of his exploits on the internet. She uses a lot of cringy slang, which just makes her that much more hateable.
  • They Look Just Like Everyone Else: There are enemy encounters where a random civilian will suddenly attack you: early in the game, these encounters are with hired hitmen trying to kill you on behalf of the Kingpin, while later in the game they're usually innocent people who have been brainwashed by Martin Li.
  • Together in Death: If you go to the cemetery after beating the game, you'll find Aunt May's grave right next to Uncle Ben's.
  • Tyrant Takes the Helm: After the City Hall bombing, Norman Osborn turns NYC into a highly militarized police state with his Sable International goons abusing their power over the city's denizens.
  • The Unfought: Despite being Osborn's right-hand woman and a fiercely competent fighter, you never get to fight Silver Sable in the main campaign. The Silver Lining DLC would later rectify this by letting players fight her a little after the campaign begins.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Kingpin styles himself as a necessary evil who brought order to New York City, with his criminal empire keeping more destructive villains from having free reign of the city. He isn't entirely wrong, but Spidey, MJ, and the general public all view this sentiment as nothing more than a shallow justification for him to play Godfather and ruin people's lives.
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