Activision have announced rather impressive (to say the least) commercial figures for the Call of Duty franchise. The franchise has surpassed $3 billion in net revenue over the last 12 months, with over 200 million players in total having played one of Call of Duty Mobile, Call of Duty: Warzone, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, or Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War in that period.
Net bookings are up 80% year-over-year for the franchise, while unit sales are up 40%. Call of Duty has also had the largest ever number of collective players across console and PC for the series, while November 2020 was also the biggest November ever for the series in terms of hours played and monthly players. Meanwhile, free-to-play battle royale shooter Warzone, which had over 80 million players at last count, has also enjoyed continued success, having now amassed over 85 million players.
Upon release, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War broke launch digital sales records for the series. Activision recently announced that Modern Warfare set a first-year sales record for the series as well.
Halo Infinite is "Ready to Go" for Spring 2021, Says Master Chief MoCap Actor
Halo Infinite was meant to be the Xbox Series X/S' big flagship launch title this November, but after that didn't pan out, the shooter got delayed into 2021. Currently, it has no set release date, but it seems the game is ready to launch in Spring 2021, with most work on it having wrapped up.
In a recent interview (via Reddit), actor Bruce Thomas, who has done the motion capture work for Master Chief since Halo 4 (including for the upcoming Halo Infinite), said that the game is "ready to go" for Spring 2021. "As far as I know, it's in the can, ready to go for next Spring," he said.
A Halo insider said not too long ago that the bulk of development on the game had wrapped up, and that 343 Industries was now focused on polishing up the experience, with the project on track for its planned 2021 launch. Read more on that through here.
Whenever it does launch, Halo Infinite will release for Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and PC. 343 Industries recently confirmed that they were working on a high-level update for the game. After promising better communication in the coming weeks and months, the studio revealed that it was working on a year-end update.
PlayStation CEO Insists Sony Is Not Shifting Away From Japanese Market With PS5
As time goes, things change. That's just the nature of the world after all. For instance, take Sony. Their output has shifted considerably in the last decade or so and has become far more focused on narrative driven single player experiences with a slathering of smaller titles to fill out gaps. It also hasn't escaped many that their focus seems to be much more on their western studios with the likes of Naughty Dog, Sony Santa Monica and Sucker Punch producing their biggest titles lately with Sony Japan, their development teams centered in the region, mostly becoming a support studio or working on smaller titles. With a recent exodus of top talent from that branch and recent reports that Sony is shifting focus away from Japan as console sales continue on a downward turn, some see the platform holder has looking away from the land of the rising sun as a new console generation begins.
In an interview with EDGE (issue 353), PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan insists this isn't the case however. He points to the release of the PS5 as an example as Japan was included in the first wave of countries to get the system, and also pointed to the various partnerships Sony had with Japanese publishers and developers for the PS4 and says that will continue with the PS5.
"We saw in the second half of the PS4 cycle a greater level of engagement from those Japanese publishers. That continues and strengthens yet again with PS5.
"I'd also observe that we're making a statement by launching in Japan day and date with the US, and that is not what we did with PS4. So I read that stuff. A lot of that commentary is inaccurate, and Japan – as our second largest market and as Sony's heartland – continues to be really important to us."
What Ryan says here makes sense. After all, despite the Japanese market moving ever away from dedicated home consoles, a lot of Japanese publishers and developers are still very much invested in the PlayStation brand. The main sticking point for many seem to be Sony's internal Japanese development decline in recent years, and whether that's due to a lack of focus from the company or simply the inability to find a formula like their western counterpoints for international success is something to debate.
UK Digital Sales Almost Doubled From Last Year For Black Friday Week
As far as I know, they don't really celebrate Thanksgiving across the pond (and let's be honest, what the hell is there really to be thankful for this year anyway), but Black Friday has become something of a universal thing on the digital front. Those in the UK also participated big time in the American tradition this go around as well.
As reported by GamesIndustry, the Black Friday week ending November 28th saw an increase of just under 50% year over year from 2019. It's interesting, because this also comes with a 20% decrease in physical sales in the region. It makes sense with the pandemic as well as the overall decline in physical sales in general in the region. Football Manager 2021 took the top spot followed by Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War. Everything else was pretty close to what you would expect with maybe one exception of 2018's God of War coming in for a quick re-entry at the bottom.
Keep in mind that this data itself in incomplete as several companies, notably Nintendo and Bethesda, do not share their data so certain games won't be present for obvious reasons. Either way, however, it was a big week for digital in the good ol' UK.
1 Football Manager 2021
2 Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War
3 FIFA 21
4 Grand Theft Auto 5
5 Assassin's Creed Valhalla
6 Watch Dogs Legion
7 Assassin's Creed Odyssey
8 Spider-Man: Miles Morales
9 Rainbow Six Siege
10 God of War
The Highs and Lows of PlayStation Console UIs, From PS1 to PS5
Over its nearly three-decade run in the console space, Sony has been able to release five separate PlayStations out into the wild all with their own unique user interfaces – seven if you count their handhelds. All of them, with their own UI's designed to meet the needs of gamers of the era in which they existed. some certainly did a better job of that than others but all of them certainly have their advantages -and their quirks- that made them stand out for their time. From the minimal to the intricate, and the pertinent to the completely obtuse, let's take a look at all of the PlayStation UI's and what made them interesting.
Where else to start but the beginning? In 1994 the world got its first good look at the beginning of what would be a very long and lasting legacy of video game consoles from Sony. The PlayStation 1 – or as it was called at the time, the PlayStation – was of course the result of a falling out between Sony and Nintendo, and Sony's ultimate decision to enter the gaming space on their own, something they of course avoided for quite a long time but eventually decided to go all in on. Thankfully, Sony's bet ended up paying off and the PlayStation set the gaming world on fire with its next-generation processing speeds and CD-ROM based gaming. Sony sold over 1 million PlayStations within the first 6 months of launching this machine.
With all of that fanfare and with so many gamers who still have memories of playing their PlayStations today, you would think more people would remember the PlayStation 1 actually had a user interface, but alas, many never knew it did. So many gamers were used to putting a game in their system man turning it on and booting straight into the game that it didn't even occur to them to try turning on the system without a game in it or with something in it other than a game just to see what happens. However, if you were one of the curious few who did, you would be greeted with a somewhat strange purple screen with two simple options; memory card or CD Player. These two options were of course self-explanatory even for the time and would take you to a sub menu where you could interact with either thing, provided that they were plugged into the PlayStation at the time.
Even more surprising than the fact that this actually had a user interface at all was the fairly useful nature of it all with lots of options. The memory card management menu would let you delete save files you didn't need anymore, or back them up to a second memory card. You can choose to copy one at a time or copy the entire card over to another all at once, which was pretty spiffy for the time. You could also of course exit this menu and go back to the main menu where you could choose between that and the CD player. The CD player would of course give you all of the options that you would see on most CD players of that time.
Play, stop, pause, track skipping, even shuffle and repeat were options here, making the PS1 a pretty decent CD player that you could hook up to your stereo and use just fine. It was in some ways even superior to a typical CD player at the time, as it would visually display to you just how many tracks there and how far into the track you were at any given time which not every CD player did back then. With so many fantastic games and innovations coming out of the PlayStation it can be easy to forget that it had one of the best UIs of its time. Visually it was a little weird, I suppose, with the purple background and the neon splotches highlighting the main options, but if you grew up in the mid-90s then you probably remember that almost everything kind of looked like that back then.
The PlayStation 2 user interface was a completely different story. The new millennium was a very different time than the mid-90s and with that came new expectations for gaming consoles and electronics in general. It wasn't just about managing your memory card and listening to CDs anymore. now people wanted different display options for different types of TVs. different types of audio output settings for their surround sound systems or whatever they had set up, and people wanted to do more than just listen to CDs on their gaming consoles, hence, of the best ideas Sony has ever had; making the PlayStation 2 compatible with DVDs. At the time DVD technology was fairly new and expensive, so this made the PlayStation 2 one of the most popular DVD players out there. As a user interface though the PlayStation 2 had a complete overhaul from the PlayStation 1's minimalist approach. Instead of a funky purple background PlayStation 2 was mostly black and kind of foggy. Instead of a long drawn-out Sony Computer Entertainment screen, the PlayStation 2 just showed you some weird three-dimensional block send flying lights and some weird blue fog in the background.
There's definitely a lot more going on in the aesthetic department, but what mattered more was the functionality and you had a lot more of that here on the PS2 than you did on the PlayStation 1. Here, all of the memory card management options that you had on the last system we're also on the PlayStation 2 but this time with animated icons that danced around which didn't really add anything to the equation other than a little personality to their files icons. Outside of that though you could change several things about your system configuration including the video output, the language, the internal clock, screen size, and more, all while being dazzled by three dimensional spinning crystal things in the background that I never really understood. but definitely looked cool. Of course, there were playback controls for DVD movies as well as compact discs that made the PS2 a highly functional machine for people that didn't even care about games.
The PS3 is where Sony's user interface arguably peaked, at least in terms of design. Everything you would expect to have from the PlayStation 2 and a whole lot more was on the PlayStation 3, except now, it would add Blu-rays to the mix and it was all laid out in a giant cross media bar that Sony never really entirely gave up on, but here it existed in its purest, least adulterated form. All of the predominant most surface-level categories we're on that single horizontal bar, with every subcategory that pertains to each one showing up in a vertical line underneath it once that category was selected. here you could easily go into your system settings, look at your game selections, manage your virtual memory cards for PlayStation 1 games and view photos from a USB drive in a fairly snappy fashion. You were only really limited by your imagination here, and this made the PlayStation 3 a monster of a media machine, and arguably still Sony's best as it still reads more file types than the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. The main drawbacks of it are that the media bar did not behave nearly as smoothly while you were in a game, and some found the simplicity of the UI rather bland and boring, but for those who are only interested in functionality the PlayStation 3 was and arguably still is PlayStation's best UI ever.
The PlayStation 4 learned a lot of lessons from the PlayStation 3 but also moved away from what it was trying to do in some ways. This was not limited to the arrangement of the items in the UI. While at its core it's still functioned in a similar way to the PlayStation 3, the PS4's UI was way more visually striking, but bigger icons and more of a futuristic personality to it that only got better over time as for more updates continued to roll out and smooth things over. here you basically have two cross media bars, the top for surface-level categories, sort of like the PS3, and a lower one for games and media items themselves. Most PlayStation users spend most of their time on the lower bar scrolling around from different games and applications to launch from it. Aesthetically, it's probably superior to the PlayStation 3 in a lot of ways but I still like the clean look of the PS3 better personally. Like the PS3, the PS4 also has a wealth of themes to choose from and a fair amount of customizability, so you can nudge it's look and feel into different directions if you so choose.
Sony has released two handhelds with separate UIs over their many years in the gaming business, both of which had very different philosophies. The PSP largely stuck to what the PS3 did which was a very nice era as going back and forth between the two machines felt extremely natural once you get used to them, yet the Vita went in a completely different direction with the strange bubble system that's sort of what something from Android would look like but weirder. obviously it just comes down to taste but functionally the big problem with the Vita UI to me is the fact that all of the main items on the UI were separated into different applications, instead of being homogenized all on the same screen like every other Sony Console. Want to check your friends list? Well, you have to open the friends list application. Even general setting has its own application that must be opened or closed in order to access them. Party chat, trophies, video player… All required you to open up a different application in order to use those functions. These applications take up a lot of real estate on the screen although admittedly you can put them all into one folder but even still that folder takes up space that could be used for another game. While it's easy to appreciate the charm of the weirdness of this UI, functionally, it's probably PlayStation's worst.
PlayStation 5's UI is to the PlayStation 4 as the PlayStation 3 was to the PlayStation 2, and that's to say it's a complete overhaul once again. you can definitely see some remnants of the mentality of the cross media bar here and there on the PlayStation 5 but generally it's been replaced with a vastly more modern look with large icons rounded corners and lots of sub-options options for every item. This keeps things rather clean and simple looking on the surface but more intricate the deeper you go. functionally it might not be quite as intuitive as some previous iterations but as people get to learn it and memorize where everything is, I'm sure the PS5 UI will continue to evolve and move our expectations even further as we await Sony's next console many years from now.
Storytelling in games tends to shy away from delving deep into romantic relationships. Sure, games reference relationships all the time as a vehicle for investing you in the protagonist's struggle and ingratiating you with other characters, but thematically, relationships are rarely put front and center. Centralizing a game's story around an ongoing relationship has proven difficult for an interactive medium, whose inherent agency often conflicts with the timing and personability of love stories. Haven attempts to break through this barrier, putting a mature, ongoing relationship at its core and building around it, attempting to let its main theme of love enhance its gameplay and keep its focus throughout. Its explorative, relaxed gameplay doesn't always connect with its romantic story, but Haven's adorable main couple and gorgeous presentation facilitates the exploration of a complex love story and proves the potential for love as a central theme in game stories.
Haven wastes no time in informing you of its central relationship. The opening moments consist of the couple in question, Kay and Yu, aboard their Nest spaceship, having crash-landed on a yet uninhabited planet called Source after escaping their oppressive home, whose Matchmaker decides each person's spouse without a choice from the individuals. The couple's curiosity for the planet, alongside their need for food, leads them to explore the islet on which they landed before a tremor sends their Nest into disrepair and forces them to look for replacement parts on the surrounding islets of Source. This development is the background for the story, but the relationship between Kay and Yu is the core driver of everything that happens, both in the overarching plot and the minute-to-minute experience on Source. There isn't that much that happens in the 10-12 hour story that is particularly surprising or unpredictable, but it's all told in such a loving way that it doesn't need many twists and turns, accompanied by beautiful animations of its characters and consistently excellent performances from its stars and generally effective writing. It's not trying to win you over with a rollercoaster of a story; it does that with its continued exploration of its characters.
"There isn't that much that happens in the 10-12 hour story that is particularly surprising or unpredictable, but it's all told in such a loving way that it doesn't need many twists and turns, accompanied by beautiful animations of its characters and consistently excellent performances from its stars and generally effective writing."
Thematically, the story delves into the tried and true idea of love and whether it can conquer any obstacle, whether it's a small disagreement on the Nest or the highly illegal escape from their home planet. At first, their relationship seems almost unreasonably pure and free from conflict, but not far in the couple runs into real, tangible hardships that threaten their relationship and push its limits. There are the natural highs that come with being in love, but it doesn't shy away from showing the mundane, quiet moments either. When you're not out exploring Source, you're inside the Nest, performing one of a handful of slower tasks like cooking, crafting, or sleeping, each of which has a purpose. Staying fed keeps your speed up in combat, and crafting allows you to perform one-time powerful attacks or heal yourself, allowing every mundane activity to feel meaningful on top of the ways it builds the relationship.
Though the love story is at the center of everything, the characters aren't annoyingly in your face about reminding each other of their love. Instead, they often choose to have more mature, meaningful conversations about things outside of themselves, from how they got to where they are to what their next moves should be. These types of cutscenes are diverse and pop up all the time when in the Nest, and, while I did end up seeing a handful of them more than once, it's a refreshing portrayal of love that gives a better, more relatable look at the characters at the game's heart and allows more complexity to their personalities than simply being in love with one another.
With that said, this relationship is at the core of everything that goes on in Haven, both in its story and its gameplay. Every action you take, from cooking a meal to defeating a monster, improves a meter representing the strength of their bond. Every filled meter not only acts as a level up, increasing your health and improving other stats, but also plays a longer, more revealing cutscene that shows the two's bond actually deepening. These scenes are some of the highlights of the entire game because they show the two at their most vulnerable and gives an increasingly vivid picture of the relationship you're investing yourself in.
"There are the natural highs that come with being in love, but Haven doesn't shy away from showing the mundane, quiet moments either."
Haven's moment-to-moment gameplay follows this relaxed, explorative feel around the islets of Source. Kay and Yu glide above the grass and can absorb a material called Flow by following strains in the environment like a skateboarder grinding a rail. Following each strain requires you to master the drift and the U-turn, both of which are tough to handle at first but become increasingly natural over time. There are many islets you can visit on Source, each of which utilizes the game's unique color palette and contains beautiful detail down to each blade of grass, though they can start to blend together. They each contain these Flow strains and are connected in an increasingly complex array of bridges between them. Some bridges are only accessible by particular Flow strains that bring you high up in the air to hard-to-reach locations. This exploration to find Flow strains and bridges is usually relaxing, but it's often frustrating in the camera's stiffness while following a strain and the game's lack of explanation for opening some bridge portals or accessing higher areas. Flow strains are often hard to find and far from the area you're attempting to access, and the game sometimes gives you very little direction as to your next objective, which is magnified by the game's confusing and hard-to-use map.
On virtually every islet, a substance called Rust covers a majority of the land, and your underlying completionist objective is to clean all the Rust from every islet in a way akin to Super Mario Sunshine. As long as your Flow meter isn't depleted, you clean Rust as you touch it, collecting shiny Rust fragments along the way. Cleaning every islet completely isn't necessary for story completion, but many upgrades require these Rust fragments and the often-annoying fast travel system requires an islet be fully cleared of Rust before traveling there. This mechanic is relaxing and meditative in a lot of ways and is often satisfying, but within it lies the primary disconnect between the game's story and gameplay. The cleaning of Rust doesn't add much to the relationship between Kay and Yu, and it often serves more as a distraction from the central theme than anything that further informs it. It's clear in the way it's presented that the two doing this are in love, in their quips at each other and the way they hold hands when they glide together, but there's no inherent connection between the story at the game's core and its central gameplay. This isn't to say it's bad; contrarily, its relaxing qualities are effective, especially combined with the game's gorgeous soundtrack, but it feels like the gameplay doesn't always add to the story in the ways that other mechanics focus so heavily on doing.
Where the connection is more evident is the game's combat, a pseudo-turn-based style faceoff between the two lovebirds and hostile animals on Source. These animals are initially peaceful, but the Rust has turned them hostile, and instead of killing them, your goal is to pacify them. These are functionally the same, but pacification is thematically easier to swallow for a game about love. Where the connection lies is how you control both characters in combat. You have four main options: long-ranged attack, close-ranged attack, shield, and pacify, each of which is an option on the D-pad for Kay and the face buttons for Yu. Initially, they work independently, shooting off their own attacks, but they're forced to progressively work in tandem to defeat most enemies. If both charge the same type of attack at the same time, they can perform an even more powerful version of that attack, and after being knocked down or stunned, some enemies will get up or recover within the time it takes to charge a full attack, meaning that you have to be prepared with the other character to attack quickly in a short window. The combat itself isn't the most enjoyable aspect of the game, but its connection to the theme makes it a lot more interesting than standard turn-based combat, and I was usually impressed with the ways I could use the two characters to improve one another.
"The combat itself isn't the most enjoyable aspect of the game, but its connection to the theme makes it a lot more interesting than standard turn-based combat, and I was usually impressed with the ways I could use the two characters to improve one another."
Haven, like its protagonists, clearly has one thing on its mind. Throughout virtually everything it presents, the relationship between its main characters takes center stage, and it crafts a beautiful and surprisingly realistic view of an ongoing love story. There are fights, deep conversations, and mundane tasks that pepper this game like they would a real romance, and the game doesn't shy away from portraying two complex people in a complex situation. Though its explorative gameplay sometimes feels disconnected from its story, it's never to the point of boredom or confusion. Its combat forces the two to play off each other, and the rest of the game lets their connection evolve. The beautiful love story at Haven's core overshadows the shortcomings of the rest of the game, and, while it works better in its storytelling than its gameplay, I always wanted to move further and see where Kay and Yu would go next.
This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.
Tales Of Series 25th Anniversary Stream Announced For December 15
While one probably does not think of Bandai Namco's Tales of franchise in the same vein as the classic Japanese RPGs like Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest, the reality is it's a storied series all its own. The first game released all the way back in 1995 for the SNES/Super Famicom in Japan. Now, 25 years later, we're getting a celebration.
As announced on the official website a 25th anniversary stream will happen live later this month. It will includes music from the games, as well as various Japanese voice actors who have lent their talents to the franchise alongside other guests. There will also be news on games, though there is no specifics given about what to expect there.
The latest entry in the series, Tales of Arise, was originally set to come out this year, but was pushed back to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A trademark for another, as of now unannounced, game called Tales Of Luminaria has also appeared in several regions. We'll keep you updated on if anything about either title is featured.
Xbox Game Pass Manager Says They Are Just Getting Warmed Up For The Holidays
It can, at times, feel somewhat unreal how good of a deal Xbox Game Pass actually is. For a cheap price, you get access to a ton of games already with a pretty steady amount of titles being added all the time. How long this gravy train will last on the current tracks its on is anyone's guess, but for now the train is running hard and fast, and it seems it's not done for 2020 just yet.
Game Pass had one of its biggest announcements recent with a total of 17 games coming to the service from now until December 10th including the likes of Control, Haven and Dragon Quest 11 S. Well, there's still about a third of the last month of 2020 left and Xbox Game Pass Manager Matt Percy took to Twitter to say the service is just getting warmed up for the holidays.
There's not much here obviously, and most of the time something like this is just good natured bolstering, but considering just how much has been dumped on Game Pass already, would not be surprised to see Microsoft have something big for the Christmas days.
AG approved gaming
on @XboxGamePass, and we're just getting warmed up ahead of the holiday season! https://t.co/8nqusbMitZ
— matt percy (@mattpercyprime) December 2, 2020
Destiny 2 – The Prophecy Dungeon Returns on December 8th
Despite leaving after the Season of Arrivals conclusion, The Prophecy is making a swift comeback in Bungie's Destiny 2. In its latest weekly blog, the developer confirmed that the dungeon would be available on December 8th. Even better is that it will be free for all players.
There are also a few changes to make the activity more appealing for end-game players. Clearing a checkpoint in the dungeon will confer Powerful Rewards one per week. Finishing the entire dungeon once a week will reward a Pinnacle drop (which is necessary for hitting the 1260 Power cap). Weapons and armor that were only available in the dungeon are live once more.
In terms of aesthetics, The Prophecy is perhaps the trippiest dungeon in Destiny 2 till date. It has players traversing the wasteland to seek out the Nine and inquire about the Darkness. Given current events in Beyond Light, one has to wonder if there will be any changes. Stay tuned next week for more details.
10 Things We Want To See In Marvel's Spider-Man 2
Insomniac had always been considered a very talented studio, but in the last few years, their stock has risen meteorically. And that's all down to one game- well, two games now. With Spider-Man and Miles Morales, Insomniac and Sony have confidently established and then built upon their own take on this iconic, beloved property, and they've done so in a manner that strikes the perfect balance between respecting the source material and having its own unique voice.
There's little doubt in anyone's mind that there's going to be a Marvel's Spider-Man 2. Neither Insomniac nor Sony have bothered being too cagey about that, and even if they had been, the staggering critical and commercial success they have enjoyed would have been more than enough to tell you that a sequel is on its way. That inevitable sequel is going to have a lot to live up to, of course, and in this feature, we'll be talking about ten things that we want to see in the game.
Do note that there will be spoilers ahead for both Marvel's Spider-Man and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, so proceed at your own risk.
So without further ado, let's get started.
SPIDER-GWEN
Two games in, and Insomniac's Spider-Man universe already has two webslingers to protect New York- so why not introduce a third with the third game? Gwen Stacey has been a crucial character in the Spidey comics for a long time, and has gained quite a bit of popularity as Spider-Gwen as well, most recently thanks to Into the Spider-Verse. There's no shortage of fans who wouldn't absolutely love to see her being brought to life in that capacity in the games as well.
The fact that Gwen Stacey as a character hasn't been introduced (or even hinted at) in the two games so far might be a bit of a hurdle- but then again. Spider-Woman does have the ability to freely traverse the multiverse, so that's a narrative obstacle that Insomniac can easily deal with by introducing a Gwen Stacey from a different universe. It's also worth mentioning that Spider-Gwen has also often been closely tied with the Venom symbiote in the comics, and if the teases in Spider-Man and Miles Morales are anything to go by, Venom is definitely going to have a role to play in the upcoming sequel.
Speaking of which…
VENOM
Venom is, without a doubt, one of Spider-Man's best and most iconic villains, so fans have a lot of expectations for his arrival in Insomniac's next Spidey game. Of course, those expectations aren't unfounded either- the post-credits scenes of both Spider-Man and Miles Morales have made it clear that Venom is going to be a factor in the next game. However, instead of Eddie Brock, it seems like Harry Osborn is going to be the symbiote's host.
The first game revealed that Norman Osborn had been using the symbiote to keep the ailing Harry Osborn in a stasis tank of sorts in order to save his life, and at the end of Miles Morales, he insists on getting his son out of the tank even when he's advised against it. So it's pretty clear that Harry is going to be an active character in the next game, and that the Venom symbiote is going to present some unforeseen complications. How that happens remains to be seen, but we couldn't be more excited about it.
SPIDER-MEN
Peter Parker and Miles Morales have both firmly established themselves as their own Spider-Men by now, and going into Spider-Man 2, both of them are going to have crucial roles to play as protectors of New York. And after having played as both of them for one game each, it seems like a foregone conclusion that both Spideys will also be playable in Spider-Man 2. The question, of course, is how exactly is the game going to split its time between both of them?
The obvious answer is that specific story missions will be tied to specific characters, which means Pete and Miles both getting their time in the sun is something that will be dictated and governed by the story, which Insonmiac will, of course, have complete control over. But Spider-Man 2 is going to be an open world game, and how players spend their time outside of those story missions is not something the developers have control over. The best case scenario we can hope for, then, is for the game to allow us to switch between Miles and Pete at will in the open world, and play as whichever of the two we want.
MILES' POWERS
Though Miles is significantly less experienced than Peter Parker as a Spider-Man, he does have a significant leg up over his mentor in terms of his abilities. On top of having all the classic Spidey abilities that Pete has, Miles can also render himself invisible, while his bioelectricity also allows him to do things that Peter simply cannot.
Miles' Venom powers, as he calls them, added a whole new layer to both combat and traversal in Miles Morales, making both sides of the game even better than they were in the 2018 title. So what do we want from the sequel? Well, more. Put even more of an emphasis on Miles' unique abilities, add even more usable, unlockable, and upgradable abilities, allow players to use these powers in even more fun and unique ways in both combat and traversal. Insomniac already set a solid foundation for that in Miles' game, so we're hoping that they'll continue to build on that.
DAY-NIGHT CYCLE, DYNAMIC WEATHER
You expect most open world games to have dynamic day and night cycles these days – it's kind of a basic requirement – but Spider-Man and Miles Morales didn't have that. Time of day changed in both games according to the story's progression, and players could change it manually from the menu. It's not a huge deal, of course, but we do hope that that's something that changes in Spider-Man 2.
More importantly, however, what we want to see even more is dynamic weather systems- because that's something that can actually effect gameplay. For example, webs might not stick to surfaces that easily when it's raining, or your swinging speed might be affected by high wind speeds, or Miles might even get a boost to his bioelectricity powers during thunderstorms. Sure, the snow was pretty to look at in Miles Morales, but weather that's more dynamic and has a tangible impact on gameplay would be so much better.
CARRY OVER ALL SUITS
One of the best things about Insomniac's Spider-Man games – besides the traversal and the combat, of course – is the ridiculous amount of suits you accrue and can switch between at a moment's notice. Spider-Man as a property has a vast, rich history, and multiple iterations of the character have had so many looks over the years. Insomniac have not only paid homage to a lot of those suits, they've also thrown in some of their own designs here and there.
We are, of course, expecting them to add even more suits and suit designs in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (ideally for both, Peter and Miles), and we're excited to see what they do with that- but just as crucial, we feel, is that they retain the suits they've already introduced in the first two games. Having all those suits carried over with their respective powers and available from the get go in Spider-Man 2 would be a dream scenario.
Oh, and speaking of powers and mods…
MORE DEPTH TO SUIT POWERS AND MODS
The many, many suits available in the two Spidey games have more benefits beyond the vastly different looks they offer. They also come with their own unique powers, which is something that players can bolster by adding mods of their own as well. And this is a system that we're hoping will have a little more depth to it in the next game.
How exactly can they have more depth? Well, for starters, having more options would be nice. It would be cool if certain suits could have more than one power, thus allowing players to mix and match powers and suits with greater flexibility. Similarly, a wider range of mods that impact traversal, stealth, and combat in more meaningful ways would contribute a lot as well. Maybe Insomniac could even take those progression mechanics a step further and allow players to level up specific suits and suit powers as well, similar to how you can upgrade mods. Upgrading suits might even lead to tweaks and changes in what they look like. There's certainly a lot of potential here, so here's hoping Insomniac continues to build on these ideas.
LARGER OPEN WORLD
Marvel's Spider-Man was the largest open world Insomniac have made to date, as is Miles Morales, given the fact that it uses the same world map (though it might not feel too large, given how quickly you can travel from end to end). It seems inevitable, though, that they'll go even larger with the next game- and it also seems inevitable that they will expand their horizons to beyond just Manhattan.
That the next game will still be set in New York City seems like a given, almost- Spider-Man and NYC are inextricably linked together, after all. Insomniac could still open up the bridges around Manhattan though, allowing players to explore more of the boroughs- or perhaps even all of them. At the very least, Queens and Brooklyn seem like obvious picks for the next game. Or we hope so, at any rate.
BETTER SIDE ACTIVITIES
If there's one thing that Spider-Man and Miles Morales are criticized for often, it's the fact that their open world activities and structure can seem a bit rote. Side activities in these games tend to be quite generic, and many of them are rather one-note collectathons. Of course, they're still incredibly fun, given the fact that they always make sure to emphasize the best parts of the game – the stealth and the combat – but that doesn't mean there's no room for improvement.
Perhaps one of the best ways to bring about that improvement would be to introduce some more variety. Across Spider-Man, its expansions, and Miles Morales, though there's definitely several kinds of side activities, they usually fall into a rather limited number of archetypes. You have your bases, you have your traversal challenges, and you have your collectathon missions. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will probably still have these – which, again, is fine, given the fact that they're still fun thanks to the game's core mechanics – but having a greater and more imaginative range of activities on top of these would help make the open world itself feel a lot more engaging.
FOCUSED STORY
Insomniac's love and reverence for the Spider-Man property is clear as day and bursting through in every second of the two games they have made so far. The stories of both games are among the best Spider-Man stories we've seen in many years across all media, and expectations, as such, are high from the next game in the storytelling department as well, especially because of all the exciting things they seem to be teasing for the future.
We do hope, however, that Insomniac can juggle the many, many balls they have in the air properly. With two games under their belt, they have a lot of characters and plot threads to contend with, many of which still have a lot of places left to go. Yuri's future has ben left up in the air for now, Harry Osborn and Venom are going to be crucial factors, Norman Osborn clearly isn't done playing a major part in the story, the side missions in Miles Morales are clearly setting up a return for Wilson Fisk, aka the Kingpin, and how Pete and Miles continue to balance their personal lives with their superhero duties will invariably continue to be a focus as well. Meanwhile, with Pete, Miles, MJ, Ganke, Rio Morales, Aaron Davis, and many others, there are quite a lot of characters that are bound to have a major presence in future stories.
Clearly, then, Insomniac have a lot of balls in the air- here's hoping they can continue to do justice to all these elements as well as they have been doing so far.