Spider-Man PS4: 10 Things It Must Learn From Batman Arkham
4. Feature A Compelling Soundtrack
Sony
One thing there's no denying about the Arkham Series is that it had a fantastic series of soundtracks, first with Nick Arundel for Asylum, City and Knight, and then with Christopher Drake for Arkham Origins.
All of their scores are fantastic, combining the gothic inflections unique to the character's world while taking inspiration from other Bat compositions. They're just as formidable as the works of Shirley Walker (BTAS), Danny Elfman (Batman 1989) and Hans Zimmer (The Dark Knight Trilogy), and while Spidey may lack as many iconic scores (barring, of course, Elfman's seminal composition), that's no reason to stop the character from getting the same treatment for Insomniac's game.
No composer has been announced for the new game, but we have heard snippets of a theme in the title's trailers. It's everything you'd expect from a Spidey composition - rousing, inspiring and youthful. If it takes a front seat to the title's most climactic moments, it could be one True Believers speak of for years to come.
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.
