10 Weirdest Genre Shifts In Video Games

9. Marvel's Spider-Man

Spider Man
Insomniac

Spider-Man's transitions into the stealth genre were an irritating fly that should never have made it onto Spidey's web.

To be clear, we're not talking about the missions where Spider-Man sneaks around enemy strongholds and introduces nameless goons to the joys of post-concussive syndrome. No, these are the moments when the designers thought "You know what would really sell the Spider-Man fantasy? Squatting through levels as his non-superpowered friends".

The levels starring Spidey's less-than-super friends were the undisputed lowlight of Insomniac's otherwise excellent game. Aggravating, slow-paced and chock-full of insta-fail scenarios, these stealth-based excursions were less "delightful palate cleansers" and more "turds floating in the punch bowl".

Why the developers felt players would appreciate the switch from euphoric open-world swinging to tedious, hunched-over shuffling is a mystery. Given the conspicuous lack of stealth missions in Miles Morales, Insomniac's follow-up game, it would seem the developers themselves realized that some genres shouldn't be mixed.

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Contributor

Hello! My name's Iain Tayor. I write about video games, wrestling and comic books, and I apparently can't figure out how to set my profile picture correctly.