The developer of Marvel’s Avengers has said the inclusion of Spider-Man as a PlayStation-exclusive DLC character was made possible by Sony’s relationship with Marvel.
Crystal Dynamicsconfirmed this week thatSpider-Man would be added to the Marvel’s Avengers rosterin early 2021, “available at no additional cost to owners of the base game, exclusively onPlayStation”.
PublisherSquare Enixhad previously confirmed it had a global marketing deal with PlayStation, which includesearly beta access for PS4 playersandtimed exclusive cosmeticsfor all characters.
However, speaking to various media outlets this week, Crystal Dynamics studio headScot Amosclaimed theSpider-Mandeal was specifically influenced bySony’s relationship with Marvel.
PlayStation parent Sony owns the movie rights for Spider-Man and recently enjoyed huge success withInsomniac’s Marvel Spider-Man game, which hassold in excess of 13 million units, making it the best-selling superhero video game to date.
“(The inclusion of) Spider-Man is a unique opportunity for us because of the relationship that PlayStation and Marvel have,” Amos said, as reported byIGN Japan.
In further comments reported byNewsweek, the studio head added: “Because of Sony’s unique relationship with Marvel and PlayStation, specifically, that gives us an affordance with Spider-Man that we wouldn’t have otherwise. So that’s something unique because of that relationship”.
He added: “The beauty of Spider-Man and what Spider-Man represents as a character in this world is, again, it comes back to the relationship with PlayStation and Marvel.
“We happen to be ones who can execute and deliver when it comes down to choices of where and what Spider-Man can be, that’s a relationship question that you know PlayStation absolutely has the rights to that as you guys know with Sony’s [movie rights] ownership there and Marvel with Sony saying, ‘hey, this is something we can do, this is something we can do on this platform’ and as creators we have this opportunity that we can make something unique and fun and awesome.
“We love the idea of being able to bring this character to the PlayStation players and so as far as everybody goes, dude, we just announced Hawkeye less than a week ago, we have two characters announced within a matter of five days the future is bright.”
Spider-Man is arguably Marvel’s most iconic character and, combined with a significant amount of additional PlayStation exclusives in the pipeline, it’s understandable that manyXboxand PC players have reacted negatively to the latest news.
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Asked how Xbox andPC gamerswho want to play as Spider-Man should feel, Amos said they “have the option to do so on PlayStation.”
“I would say thatMarvel’s Avengershas a lot of heroes, and with the scope and the breadth of this game and this universe, players are going to have their hands full with a lot to play with,” he said.
“This is an opportunity to celebrate [Spider-Man’s addition] uniquely for those players [on PlayStation] because of that relationship, but I think there’s so much of a world for people to explore, I wouldn’t look at that as a reason not to embrace it the opportunity [to add Spider-Man onPS4andPS5]. I would say, look at all this stuff you get to play with.
“And for those players who absolutely want to play as Spider-Man, you have the option to do so on PlayStation.”
Marvel’s Avengers is set to release on September 4 for current-gen consoles and PC.Avengers is also set to launch on next-generation consoleslater this year and owners of the current-gen version will be able to upgrade at no additional cost.
