Spider-Man has one of the richest gaming histories of any superhero, but sadly some of the Wall-Crawler’s best titles might never be re-released. Long before Insomniac brought Spidey to the PlayStation brand with its excellent series of Marvel’s Spider-Man games, mega-publisher Activision had exclusive rights to several of Marvel’s most popular heroes, including Peter Parker, the X-Men, and the Avengers.
Activision’s storied run of 3D Spider-Man games began with 2000’s Spider-Man for the original PlayStation and lasted all the way until 2014 - when the poor reception of The Amazing Spider-Man 2’s tie-in game led to Activision and Marvel ending their license agreement early. In addition to the expected Spider-Man movie tie-in games, Activision published several stand-alone Spidey titles through developers like Treyarch and Beenox. Two of these titles were Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time, which saw Peter Parker team up with different Spider-Men from across time and space to save reality from various supervillains.
Activision Once Tried To Remaster Shattered Dimensions And Edge Of Time
While Activision hasn’t produced a new Marvel-based video game since the aforementioned Amazing Spider-Man 2, the publisher has previously attempted to strike a deal with the House of Ideas to allow it to relist some of its older titles like the Marvel: Ultimate Alliance games. According to an anonymous Reddit by the handle of Spider-Verse-inspiring Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge of Time in 2018.
Although Marvel was ostensibly on board and Activision began “early prototyping” on these remasters, the deal is rumored to have fallen through after Activision pushed for the rights to develop new Marvel games. Unfortunately, it seems these remasters may never be finished now, as armoredadvanced claims that the development team behind them was only able to extract minor assets from the games’ original source code before the project was scrapped.
Activision’s Classic Spider-Man Games May Be Lost To History
While fans might be pretty lukewarm on the idea of playing through Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time again, the cancelation of these remasters also means that some of Activision's best Spidey games may never be released again. Titles like Neversoft's Spider-Man and Treyarch's seminal adaptation of Spider-Man 2 are considered to be some of the best video games to feature the legendary Wall-Crawler. The latter is notable for being the first open-world Spider-Man game, paving the way for Insomniac to perfect this formula with its own Marvel's Spider-Man series. Other titles that could have used a good remaster include 2008's Spider-Man: Web of Shadows, which featured a Symbiote-centric plot and heroes like Wolverine.
Sadly, it appears that Activision isn't going to be issuing any remasters for its classic Marvel games anytime soon, given how its deal to rerelease Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Edge of Time fell through. There is no shortage of landmark Spider-Man video games that would be a blast to play through on modern systems, but with all of Activision's Marvel games delisted and no remasters on the horizon, it looks like the only way to replay Spider-Man 2 or the underrated Spider-Man: Edge of Time is to track down a physical copy of said game and a corresponding console to play it on - which might be a struggle for even the most devoted Spider-Man gaming fan.
Source: armoredadvanced/Reddit (via CBR), IGN/YouTube