Spider-Man PS4: 10 Things It Must Learn From Batman Arkham
2. Make Side-Missions Worthwhile
Insomniac
Apart from perhaps the Riddler rooms in Arkham Knight and the climax to Professor Pyg's and Hush's arc, can you genuinely name a compelling Arkham side-quest?
Most were found wanting mechanically, with the routine of "go here, scan that" wearing thin almost instantly as the World's Greatest Detective was reduced to nothing more than a techie lacking anything even resembling the vaguest sense of intuition. Those add-ons just weren't engaging in the slightest, and while they gave way to some interesting showdowns, the process of actually getting there was rarely fun.
It's something Insomniac should be conscious of for Spider-Man on PS4, and with the wall-crawler able to boast as many enemies and allies as he can, there isn't exactly a shortage of characters to choose from. Classic story-arcs, characters and scenarios are ripe for a pixelated transformation - they just have to be worthwhile.
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.
