E3 2016: 9 Things To Expect From Spider-Man On PS4

5. An Open-World Is Pretty Much Guaranteed

Spider-Man 2 game 2004
Marvel

Admit it, if you ask anyone in the street what their favourite Spider-Man game was, it's going to have featured an open-world. That euphoric freedom of movement is almost inextricably linked with the character at this point, so if you confine Parker to a semi-linear narrative you're automatically wasting a great deal of potential to be had in giving the character the triple-A treatment.

Whether it be cel-shaded or otherwise, Spidey has had some of the best open worlds in the medium, with Spider-Man 2's coming complete with an array of random events to further immerse players in their own wall-crawling experience.

Not all of the environments that followed were as jam-packed as Treyarch's seminal third-person action title, but players didn't really mind so long as they could fulfil their web-slinging fantasies. I'd go as far as to say you could probably release a title that just gave players the opportunity to swing around New York and it would still sell wonderfully, but regardless, it's hard to imagine a next-gen release not taking advantage of such a staple feature of past Spidey games, especially when it has to contend with Arkham at the same time.

Plus, the prospect of a current-gen rendition of Manhattan is just too tempting to pass-up. Just try and ditch the boat rescues this time, pretty please?

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Content Producer/Presenter

WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.