Over two decades after swinging onto the shelves, a developer behind the original Spider-Man game says he would “love” remastering the PlayStation 1 classic.
Spider Man for PlayStation 1 may be over 20 years old at this point, but that has not stopped one of its developers from thinking about introducing Spidey’s first 3D video game to modern audiences.
Chad Findley, who worked as a Lead Designer at Spider Man at former developer Neversoft, recently shared his thoughts on a potential remaster of the game during an interview with GamingBible. “Although at first I would be reluctant because of the nightmarish licensing and approval processes that exist these days,” Findley said, “I would definitely do it.”
Although the chances of one Spider Man remaster remains up in the air, Findley could very well be the man for the job as the developer continued to express not only passion for the character but why Old Webhead still holds today. “I love Spider-Man,” Findley said. “It was such an amazing, nerdy character with stories that always have positive messages and themes, while still being exciting and fun. Things we need these days.”
Released in 2000 on the PlayStation 1, Nintendo 64 and Sega Dreamcast consoles, Spider Man marked the first superhero game to successfully bring comic book action to a 3D space. Although the game’s web swinging and fighting shows their age compared to 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Manthe game still managed to feature fan-favorite enemies like Venom, Carnage, and Doctor Octopus, while also capturing Wall-Crawler’s sense of humor.
Two Spider-Man titles made under Activision reportedly had to be remastered before the publisher lost its license to develop Marvel video games. Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time from 2010 and 2011, respectively, were to be remastered on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Switch, where the games allegedly began “early prototyping” before Activision’s agreement with Marvel fell through in 2014. The remasters reportedly contained only “minor graphical enhancements / bug fixes,” with an unnamed source that even describes the projects as a “quick money maker.”
While it is clear to see how a remaster of the original Spider Man could be a licensing headache, given that the game was also developed under Activision, fans will at least be happy to see its impact on the Spider-Man games today. In addition to being groundbreaking for the open world city and traversal mechanics that are likely to be built on in next year Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Spidey’s latest game could also see the return of costume options with unique effects on gameplay. Each costume in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is rumored to have a Symbiote version, which in most other games changed the gameplay in some way – such as giving the player unlimited webbing during one of the first playable appearances of the Symbiote suit in Neversoft’s original Spider Man.
Source: GamingBible
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