One of the things that the gaming space has shown us over the years is that when one title brings in things like motion controls, open worlds to explore, online multiplayer, co-op of any kind, etc., other games are “expected” to do the same. After all, why wouldn’t they do it if other games are doing it well? There are many answers to that, but the most basic one is that sometimes the games don’t need those extra features to be great. For example, when Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 went without updates for almost two years, lots of rumors started to pop up about it, including that the game would be a co-op adventure.
That made sense to a degree since the original title from Insomniac and the Miles Morales-based spinoff were both single-player adventures, as you primarily played as Peter Parker or Miles Morales. No one likes to talk about the Mary Jane sections. Just saying. Anyway, they were the stars of their own games, so them being single-player worked. But in the sequel, Peter and Miles are both looking after New York, so it could work to have one player be Peter and the other be Miles.
However, after the recent gameplay trailer, that was proven not to be the case. Then, in an interview with The Washington Post, Creative Director Bryan Intihar noted that the game was always going to be single-player, and for an equally basic reason:
“From day one, we always said we wanted to make a single-player experience. There’s a lot of great co-op games out there, but we wanted to tell the experience of two spider heroes. You have to make some big decisions, whether it’s design decisions, tech decisions for something like co-op.”
He’s not wrong. For example, if it was meant to be a co-op adventure, you’d have to potentially branch the story so that you could tell things from the perspective of Peter, then then the same story through the perspective of Miles. Or you’d have to branch off the story entirely instead of melding them together as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 does.
But that doesn’t mean that one of the Spider-Men will get the shaft, far from it. In the game, you can choose who to play in the open world while switching between the two in key story beats. Plus, you get to customize and upgrade their moves to suit your playstyle.
So while it’s not co-op, it’ll still be a great and unique adventure for your friendly neighborhood Spider-Men.
