Grand Theft Auto has its Vice City, Cyberpunk 2077 its Night City, and Mafia its Chicago and New Orleans, but for exciting and colorful video game cities nothing beats the New York City of Marvel’s Spider-Man. And why not? New York is the biggest, most densely-populated American city and arguably its most fast-paced, complex, and interesting urban setting for a video game. New York is especially suited to the exploits of the costumed web-slinger better known as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, who fights and slinks and parkours his way through the city, scaling its walls, ducking down its alleys, and swinging between its skyscrapers as though all of New York were his jungle gym.
There have been Spider-Man home video games since the birth of the medium, going all the way back to the vertical scroller released in 1982 for the Atari and Magnavox systems (leading up to, and perhaps ending with Marvel's Spider-Man 2). Spidey has roamed his virtual New York on virtually every platform since, including the Amiga, Commodore 64, and Game Boy (two different games, both titled The Amazing Spider-Man, were released in 1990); the NES (1992’s Spider-Man: Return of the Sinister Six); and the original PlayStation (2000’s Spider-Man and 2001’s Spider-Man: Enter Electro). In total, Marvel’s Spider-Man has been featured in over 40 games on 15 different platforms since his debut.
But it wasn’t until the emergence of the open-world concept that the true potential of Spider-Man as a video game headliner could be realized. Even when the story fell short - as it did, for example, in 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 - or became repetitive (see 2012’s The Amazing Spider-Man), the ability to explore Spider-Man's huge open-world New York made up for it, providing players ample opportunity to discover side quests, have random encounters, or simply enjoy the gritty, textured urban landscape. Not all games are created equal, though, and while most Spidey-themed games in the last 20 years have been set in an open-world New York, some stand above the rest for the quality and complexity of their environments and settings. With apologies to fans of the runners-up - 2007’s Spider-Man 3 and 2005’s Ultimate Spider-Man, in addition to those mentioned above - the following are the Spider-Man games with the best open-world versions of New York City.
Spider-Man 2 Debuted An Open-World New York City
Developed by Treyarch, published by Activision, and based on the hit movie of the same name, 2004’s Spider-Man 2 introduced players to the first fully realized open world game featuring Marvel's Spider-Man and set in New York City. Consisting of Manhattan and some of its surrounding islands, the New York of Spider-Man 2 was not merely an open world, it was a playable open world, up, down, and sideways. For the first time, the game included a mechanic that enabled Spidey to shoot webs at the city’s buildings and swing between them. Combat was enhanced, too, with players now able to battle Doctor Octopus and his minions in three glorious dimensions.
Though the graphics capabilities of the time were clearly inferior to those used to create later games, the open world of Spider-Man 2 was realistic, with a feeling of expansiveness and depth. And while the game’s storyline was linear and followed that of the movie on which it was based, Spider-Man 2’s Manhattan had side missions, including crimes to disrupt and emergencies to resolve, all of which brought the city and its inhabitants to life. Despite its age, Spider-Man 2 is regarded by many as one of the best franchise games ever, due in large part to the complexity of its open world and the new algorithms that allowed players to explore it.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Has An Enormous Open-World NYC
Released in 2018 by developer Insomniac Games and publisher Sony Interactive, Marvel’s Spider-Man had the biggest and most beautiful open-world New York ever rendered for gaming. Visually stunning and deeply complex (qualities made even more startling in 2020’s Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered), the city Peter Parker explores is filled with NPCs to meet, side missions to undertake, tasks to complete, and equipment to unlock. Not only does it look good, the New York of Marvel’s Spider-Man had the best web-swinging yet seen. The traversal and parkour mechanics were smooth and satisfying, allowing players to take full advantage of the urban setting’s horizontal and vertical dimensions.
With good reason, Marvel’s Spider-Man’s open world has been criticized for having too much stuff packed into it - too many collectibles, too many distractions, too many things to discover simply because they are marked on Spidey’s map announcing themselves as ripe for discovery. In addition, the game has been criticized, again with justification, for the predictability of its open world, which relied on visual cues and HUD markers to direct players linearly and restricting their ability to freely explore Manhattan. But still, the city through which Spidey travels is so big and so awesome, and the mechanics of navigating him through it are so smooth and intuitive (unlike Spider-Man's clunky web-swinging in Marvel's Avengers), that the game can be forgiven for those shortcomings. It remains one of the best open-world New Yorks in a Spider-Man game.
Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Has The Best New York
What is more important in an open-world video game: breadth or depth? For those who prefer broad expanses of terrain filled with iconic landmarks and seemingly endless quests, Marvel’s Spider-Man is liable to be their favorite. But those who hold a small-is-better philosophy should put their money on Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the 2020 action-adventure for PlayStation, coming to Windows PCs November 18, 2022. The game was notably shorter than its predecessor, and the challenges and quests required to advance and complete it were fewer. But the biggest difference between the two was to be found in the nature of the games’ different open worlds. Perhaps setting up a Marvel's Spider-Man 2 sequel, Miles Morales was set in the same New York as Peter Parker’s adventures, but whereas Parker’s Spider-Man worked across the entirety of Manhattan and its various neighborhoods, Morales’ Spider-Man is focused on one neighborhood, Harlem, and his missions and interactions were concentrated there. As a result, the game feels deeper and more complex, with a world just as fascinating as its predecessor’s despite the different scope.
Different games appeal to different players, and the qualities of their open worlds can provide vastly different experiences. But the two most recent Marvel's Spider-Man games offer contrasting views of the city and, consequently, contrasting approaches to the open-world video game. For those who prefer a deeper story with a more limited scope that is nonetheless visually amazing and fun to play, Spider-Man: Miles Morales should rank number one.