Lego Marvel’s Avengers was released back in January of this year and was praised for its depiction of the Avengers movie and its charming Lego aesthetics. If you’ve collected every collectable there is, and beaten every bad guy, then you’ll be pleased to learn you now have an excuse to play the game some more. VideoGamer reports that a free DLC pack for Lego Marvel’s Avengers has been released and is a Spider-Man themed character pack that includes six new characters. They are as follows: Spider-Man (Marvel’sCaptain America: Civil War) The free DLC pack is available for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC, and Wii U versions of the game. Final Fantasy XV Director Talks Square Enix and ‘Final Fantasy Disease’ Rocket League Cross-Platform Play Arrives on Xbox One and PC Today The Division Fixes Major Game-Breaking Exploit in Conflict UpdateSo, let's talk about the whopping surprise Sony slipped in at the end of its E3 2016 conference.
After opening with a Norse-set God of War starring Dad Kratos, delivering – after a heartbreaking seven year wait – a release date for The Last Guardian and presenting Norman Reedus' impressively sculpted bottom to the world, there was surely nothing else left that could send the gaming populous into an even greater fit of violent glee...Currently known only as Spider-Man, everyone's favourite friendly neighbourhood, dorky arachnid-person is starring in a brand-new game being developed by Insomniac, the team behind Ratchet and Clank. The announcement sent this particular writer into meltdown.Following the announcement, Marvel Games dropped a few choice phrases indicating that Marvel's video game branch is taking a sharp left-turn in its outlook, especially after a couple of years spent focusing almost solely on mobile free-to-play titles. Marvel's vice president of games, Jay Ong, called the project "huge" and "ambitious", described working solely with "world-class talent" and pondered on Marvel Games' role, explaining that the team is constantly asking: "How do we make the game better?"
While some of this could well be PR waffle following a major announcement, it needed to be said after decades of Marvel superheroes starring in video game adaptations and movie tie-ins which have ranged from the surprisingly good (2004's Spider-Man 2, Marvel vs. Capcom 2), to the bang-average (Deadpool, Lego Marvel's Avengers) and the most odious examples of mishandled IP imaginable (X-Men: Destiny, Thor: God of Thunder).Even the better Marvel-branded games have fared poorly in comparison to those of rival DC Comics – whose Arkham trilogy (let's ignore Arkham Origins) ranks among the best new series introduced in the past decade. Judging from what we know already, Marvel Games has clearly taken cues from Rocksteady Studios' elite franchise, with a unique, Marvel Cinematic Universe-inspired twist. Rather than haphazardly putting a square-peg into a round-hole, and making "Spider-Man PS4" into a marketing tool for Peter Parker's full Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) debut in 2017's Spider-Man: Homecoming, the open-world adventure is instead an original, "authentic" story, with Insomniac afforded the liberty to create its own take on the web-slinger's universe.
In the teaser trailer, Peter Parker's narration seems contemplative, thoughtful and a little world-weary. In an E3 live-stream interview, the game's creative director Bryan Intihar teased the mind-set Insomniac's older Spider-Man, revealing the game will ask how the man under the mask changes when he dons red and blue spandex.This is all as far removed from the sweetly naive, juvenile antics of Tom Holland's loquacious big-screen Spider-Man, introduced in April's Captain America: Civil War. Instead Marvel Games is following the bold strategy Warner Brothers took when it canned Pandemic's The Dark Knight tie-in and put the licence in the capable hands of Rocksteady.There are, however, comparisons to be made with the MCU in terms of production. While it may have been purely coincidental, it's perhaps telling that the vague pre-E3 rumours of a Spider-Man title pointed toward Infamous developer Sucker Punch taking the helm. Despite the eventual Insomniac reveal – in theory, either studio would have been worthy candidates based on their pedigree.
This kind of semi-outsourced development plan echoes the way in which the MCU has boldly chosen left-field directors for the big-screen adaptations of its precious heroes and heroines. They've selected, and continue to select, a wide array of inventive, talented luminaries, rather than Hollywood's go-to soulless, spectacle-fodder film-makers like McG and Michael Bay.Following this train of thought leads to the idea of a multi-studio family of games featuring Marvel's finest. As if it wasn't obvious enough that more Marvel games would be the aim, Ong admitted Spider-Man was just the start. The idea of interconnected games set in a cohesive narrative universe is enough to make even the most jaded geek go weak at the knees. What exactly would a Marvel Gaming Universe look like if talented studios like Sucker Punch, Naughty Dog, Platinum Games and Telltale Games (which is already happening) were given the keys to Avengers HQ? But what if we take this idea a step further? What if this Marvel game-verse took further cues from its cinematic brethren and created an interconnected world featuring cross-franchise cameos, references and Assemble-style events?
This potential shared-universe franchise production doesn't exclusively apply to Marvel IP either. EA's squadron of Star Wars titles was detailed further at E3 2016, with the likes of Visceral Games, BioWare, DICE and Respawn Entertainment working on the Star Wars licence's video game reawakening. While the galaxy far, far away tends to toy with its own timeline – for example, BioWare's seminal RPG Knights of the Old Republic is set thousands of years prior to the adventures of the Skywalkers – the possibility for an all-encompassing, cross-game canon is there.If this is the direction Marvel wants to take its gaming output, then, just like with 2008 blockbuster Iron Man, it all hinges on the success of the new Spider-Man game. A fine showing from the folks at Marvel and Insomniac could see cataclysmic changes in the way publishers approach IP.A recent online update has revealed Spider-Man‘s PS4 game villain to be the Green Goblin; The iconic character might have been Peter Parker’s greatest nemesis when Sam Raimi put Tobey Maguire up against Willem Dafoe, but that doesn’t mean the game’s developer is going to do the same thing in the upcoming video game.
Of course, the Green Goblin has been a pain in Spider-Man’s hindquarters for much longer than the movies. The villainous relationship dates all the way back to the days when Stan Lee and Steve Ditko were still building Marvel Comics as a profitable entity. Spider-Man was one of Stan Lee’s first creations, debuting in 1962’s Amazing Fantasy number 15, an issue after Green Goblin reared his hover-boarding head. They have been enemies since the beginning, and the movies have reflected that twice already. It’s unknown if the Sony and Marvel collaboration Spider-Man: Homecoming will attempt to bring Green Goblin back once more, possibly in an Easter Egg. It’s doubtful that the upcoming Marvel Cinematic Universe entry will be in any way related to the PS4 video game, and that’s probably a good thing. Video games and movies rarely ever work when they share a story. The only thing the two entities are likely to have in common is their comic book origins. The rumor that the Spider-Man PS4 game’s villain will be Green Goblin stems from a listing on IMDb, which gave a summary of the overall plot before it was removed.
The summary stated that the Green Goblin is hatching sinister plans which threaten not only Spider-Man’s life but the personal life of Peter Parker, now a married man with a daughter. The movies have yet to make Peter Parker more than a High School student; a fact which some comic book fans find annoying as the comics haven’t had the character in school since maybe the first year. Making him older and possibly married to Mary Jane could be the fresh approach which fans crave. iTech Post says that upon the reveal of this rumor, Insomniac Games took to Twitter and stated, “[IMDb] is like Wikipedia, anyone can add anything to it. You’ll hear the real deal from us first.” The developer didn’t say it was false, only that they weren’t going to confirm it. The removal of the summary from that IMDb listing could only be the result of them attempting to keep the rumor from becoming fact. As for the 2017 film, Spider-Man’s headache will be a combination of Vulture (Michael Keaton) and Shocker (Herman Schultz), with the latter possibly having his origin explained prior to becoming a full threat.
The Spider-Man PS4 game will have some high expectations attached to it as we haven’t seen a game franchise based on this character with a healthy degree of success. Only Batman has seen a renowned solo franchise on consoles so far, almost mirroring Christopher Nolan’s theatrical take. Spider-Man has been in a lot of team-based games which went over well, such as Marvel Ultimate Alliance, LEGO Marvel Super Heroes, and the Marvel Vs Capcom series, but he’s rarely been in a solo title which went over well. This is possibly due to the aforementioned movie tie-ins or a failure to advertise them effectively. This time, Spider-Man shared the spotlight with Batman: Arkham VR and others, neither really showing the main villain. Of course, the VR title is based on the four games, so the story didn’t change. We won’t know officially if Green Goblin will be the main villain in the upcoming Spider-Man PS4 game until Insomniac Games confirms it. All we know for now is that Stan Lee and Steve Ditko are listed as honorary writers, having created the source material, and Yuri Lowenthal will be the voice actor behind your friendly neighborhood wall-crawler.