‘New’ Spider-Man PS5 game is an expanded remaster, not a sequel

Would-be PS5 gamers and fans of the excellent Marvel’s Spider-Man – a PS4 exclusive that launched in 2018 and was one of our best games of the year – were likely highly excited at the sneak peek at a new Spider-Man PS5 game, showed off during the massive PS5 game reveal event on June 11. But not all was as it seemed.

Along with our first look at the PS5 console itself, and a host of other incoming PS5 games, we caught a teaser trailer for a new Spider-Man game titled Spider-Man: Miles Morales, available as a launch title for the PS5 this year. 

It did seem like a quick turnaround from 2018’s title, though, and we’ve since learned that the Miles Morales title is actually an expanded remaster of the original game. It revisits the game on the PS5’s superior hardware, with added content featuring the titular version of the superhero.

• This is what the PS5 looks like
• PS5 games: everything confirmed so far
• PS5 vs Xbox Series X: what we’ve learned

Tangled web

Speaking to The Telegraph, SIE’s EVP Head of European Business Simon Rutter clarified that Spider-Man Miles Morales was “an expansion and an enhancement to the previous game,” rather than a sequel in and of itself. 

Rutter added: “There’s a substantial Miles Morales component – which is the expansion element – but also within the game as well there’s been major enhancements to the game and the game engine, obviously deploying some of the major PlayStation 5 technology and features.” 

We were excited to see a Miles Morales-fronted video game, as an Afro-Latino iteration of the webslinger and one of Marvel’s best new creations over the past few decades. Miles was also seen in 2018’s utterly mind-blowing Into The Spider Verse animated movie, which is set to get a sequel in 2022.

The messaging around the announcement was muddled at best, for what effectively sounds like a high-end remaster with some DLC. The description for the trailer reads “Revealing Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a new adventure from Insomniac Games coming to PlayStation 5” – which really does sound like a sequel. It certainly could have been flagged better in the reveal itself.

It’s unclear whether Miles Morales is a self-contained piece of DLC, or something more entwined with the story of the original game, but it sounds more like the former. It’s still great to see Morales given the time of day, and we look forward to seeing what different abilities (and story hook) his addition will bring to the game. 

Whether or not you played Marvel’s Spider-Man on PS4, it’s certainly a launch title to keep your eye on – and it’s refreshing to see developers provide an incentive to check out a next-gen remaster beyond just flashier graphics.

Check out the trailer for Spider-Man: Miles Morales below:

Source: techradar.com