Spider-Man is still coming to Marvel’s Avengers and will remain exclusively available on the PS4 and PS5. However, the developers on the game confirmed that the original release window for Spidey, early 2021, is no longer accurate.
Talking to IGN, Crystal Dynamics head of studio Scot Amos explained that a playable Spider-Man is being worked on and is “still on our roadmap for the future.” Interestingly, Spider-Man isn’t on a just-released roadmap for the future of the Avengers. Instead, the plan ends in summer with the release of Black Panther and a new expansion set in Wakanda. And according to Amos, Spider-Man won’t be arriving until after Black Panther, far beyond the originally promised release window of “early 2021.”
It’s very possible Spider-Man could slip into Winter 2021 or even early 2022 at this point, as covid-19 continues to also slow down game development around the industry.
When Square Enix and Crystal Dynamics first announced Spider-Man’s exclusivity in August 2020, people weren’t happy. When asked why Spider-Man was exclusive to PlayStation, Amos released a wild, hard-to-understand word salad days later that didn’t so much answer the question, but instead buried it under words, like a dog hiding an old bone.
Almost seven months later, Spider-Man still isn’t in the game, and fans who pre-ordered Avengers on PS4 because they expected their favorite web-swinging hero to be in the game by now have to keep waiting. And as the Avengers deals with players’ frustration over a lack of content and negatively received changes to leveling up, it seems Crystal Dynamics has bigger problems to deal with before getting Spider-Man out the door.
As always, this is a good reminder to stop pre-ordering games. I’d also recommend Square Enix and Sony to be careful advertising characters or DLC before the game is even out and before that content has even been finished. Unless you like delaying content and upsetting players over and over.
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