Oh, Sony. It's been a rollercoaster 24 hours for the company behind the PS5, after a back-and-forth of mixed messaging and confusion over the status of a Spider-Man launch title for the PS5 console – which now appears to indeed be a standalone title, rather than a remaster and expansion of the 2018 Marvel’s Spider-Man game.
The hype was high during the PS5 game reveal event on June 11, showing off young Miles Morales – the Afro-Latino version of the superhero, as seen in the mind-blowing Into The Spider-Verse animated movie (which is set to get a sequel in 2022), adding invisibility and electro-shock abilities into the mix.
Things got knotty, however, after a Sony exec tempered hopes of a full-on sequel, angling the Miles Morales game as merely an expanded remaster of the PS4 title, featuring Miles in a DLC component.
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Speaking to The Telegraph, SIE’s EVP Head of European Business Simon Rutter clarified that Spider-Man Miles Morales was “an expansion and an enhancement to the previous game,” rather than a sequel in and of itself.
Rutter added: “There’s a substantial Miles Morales component – which is the expansion element – but also within the game as well there’s been major enhancements to the game and the game engine, obviously deploying some of the major PlayStation 5 technology and features.”
However, a source at Sony seems to have told Bloomberg News that the game is a standalone title, not quite a fully-fledged sequel but not a retread either – a kind of 1.5 iteration sitting in the middle.
NEWS: Spider-Man Miles Morales is *not* an expansion or enhancement or remaster, despite a Sony executive's comments this morning, a source tells Bloomberg News. Nor is it Spider-Man 2. It is a brand-new, standalone game similar in scope to Uncharted Lost Legacy.June 12, 2020
That claim was backed up by a timely tweet from Spider-Man developer Insomniac Games, which specifically called Miles Morales a "standalone game."
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is the next adventure in the Marvel's Spider-Man universe. We will reveal more about this standalone game at a future date. #MilesMoralesPS5 pic.twitter.com/GOTAvNhUaFJune 12, 2020
Not so fast
It did seem pretty soon for a proper sequel, given only two years have passed since Marvel's Spider-Man's release – but the fact that Sony isn't sure about what it's publishing doesn't inspire confidence for its ability to communicate key information around the PS5 in the coming months.
Sony has been pretty tight-lipped about its next-gen console, showing off the PS5 console's design months after the Xbox Series X was shown off – and now that we're seeing and hearing more about it, the messaging simply isn't consistent.
It may well be that the original 2018 game is bundled in somehow with the new title, but we're just happy to hear that Miles Morales is getting his own story, rather than a DLC add-on. If the past few hours have taught us anything, though, it's that this story could well change again.
Check out the trailer for Spider-Man: Miles Morales below:
- Never played it? Read our Marvel's Spider-Man review
