Last year,Spider-ManandRatchet & Clankdeveloper Insomniac Games was the victim ofa historic leakas hackers pilfered over a terabyte of data from the first-party studio in an attempt to blackmail Sony.
The abundance of files were later shared online and includeda playable build of Wolverine, a roadmap detailing future plans including an unannounced X-Men game, and evena very early build of Spider-Man 3 with Silk. Also nestled among this gargantuan amount of information was one of PlayStation’s many scrapped live-service projects,a Spider-Verse game.
Developed internally at Insomniac, The Great Web would have seen five different players in the shoes of Spider-people like Gwen Stacy, Miguel O’Hara, Ben Reilly, Miles Morales, and Peter Parker, fighting the Sinister Six in New York City asScarlet Witch ripped open a tear in the multiverse.
Fans were upset at the time to find out that it had been cancelled, but the outrage is even worse all these months later amidstConcord’scatastrophic release andsubsequent closure. Now, it’s being used as a gotcha to prove Sony doesn’t have a clue what it’s doing. But in this case, Sony made the right call.
Live-Service Games Are All-Consuming
We don’t know how far along in development The Great Web was, but given that it hadn’t even been announced yet, it was probably in the early stages of production. Had it been revealed and then cancelled, it would have become another public notch on Sony’s live-service belt, causing a PR firestormakin to what happened with Naughty Dog and Factions 2.
Originally set to launch alongsideThe Last of Us Part 2way back in 2020, Factions 2 took on a life of its own as a more ambitious, standalone, live-service spin-off. But it was cancelled after years of radio silence and reports of rocky development because Naughty Dog didn’t want to “become a solely live service games studio” (as reported byRadio Times).
It’s a fair concern, especially considering the risk of live-service games. You will inevitably face comparison to industry giants likeFortniteandLeague of Legends, trying to carve out a space in one of the most competitive spaces in the medium.
Even if you somehow cut through the noise and make a name for yourself — much likeHelldivers 2did earlier this year — you then need frequent, substantial updates to keep people interested. This eats up a lot of development time, which leaves no room for prestigious, acclaimed studios like Naughty Dog to continue making prestigious, acclaimed games.
A Spider-Verse game might sound fun in theory, but its existence would leave far less room for Insomniac to make the games its fans love so much. Cancelling it before it was ever announced should have avoided backlash and freed the studio to continue pursuing what it does best, and what’s more creatively fulfilling in the long-term. The only reason that didn’t happen is because of a ransomware group leaking the information online.
Insomniac Is Already Trapped In A Marvel Machine Of Its Own Making
The leaks also revealed a roadmap detailing everything that Insomniac is working on until 2030. Disappointingly, every game on this roadmap bar one is a Marvel title — Spider-Man 2, Venom, Wolverine, Spider-Man 3, an untitled Ratchet & Clank sequel, and X-Men.
Because of the huge success of Spider-Man, it has gone full throttle into building its own video game universe with spin-offs, sequels, and new series. Considering how varied Insomniac’s library used to be,it’s a shame to see it limit itself to superheroes for the better part of a decade.
But it would be exponentially worse if you were to add a live-service game into the mix. Most of its resources would undoubtedly be funnelled into supporting an expensive superhero project that leaves little room for anything else, and so new IP like the one it has planned for 2031-2032 would probably be pushed aside.
Live-Service Failures Can Spell The End Of Studios
Last month,Concord director Ryan Ellis stepped downafter the game was taken offline in an unprecedented move by Sony. As reported byGamesIndustry.biz, developers at Firewalk now allegedly fear layoffs, and there’s a good reason for that.
Arkane Austin was shut down after the failure of Redfall, developerRocksteady suffered layoffs after Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League’s infamous launch, and Boss Key Productions shut down after LawBreakers and Radical Heights underperformed.
PlayStation layoffs earlier this year were already confirmed to have impacted Insomniac, so we know the studio isn’t immune to this unprecedented shedding of talent that we’ve seen in the industry over the last two years. But had it been at the helm of a disastrous live-service launch, things would look a lot bleaker.
So, sure, playing Spider-Man with your friends might sound cool in theory. But live-service games are incredibly risky, expensive ventures that can gut studios if it all goes wrong. Insomniac and Sony abandoning plans for The Great Web so early in development is a good sign that not all studios under the PlayStation umbrella will be funnelled into the multiplayer machine. We should be celebrating, not using Concord as fuel to demand Insomniac throw itself into the live-service flames.
