Though Beenox’s output of Spidey titles was steady between 2010 and 2014, the quality of each was less so, especially in the shadow of Treyarch’s Spider-Man 2, which remains a benchmark for Spider-Man games still to this day. With Peter Parker making his big comeback this month, however, I figured it would be an apt time to chat with Beenox’s co-head Thomas Wilson to look back on the past, present, and future of Spider-Man’s ever changing relationship with interactive entertainment, and the studio’s own history with the character in particular. 

Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions (2010)

Shattered Dimensions was Beenox’s first real Spider-Man title, following its successful ports of old games like Ultimate Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. Praised for its ambitious, fan servicing plot and confident vision, Shattered Dimensions was a very strong start for Beenox, so it’s no surprise that it also happens to be Wilson’s personal favourite too.

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“At the time, the ask was to rejuvenate the franchise with something that would be new and innovative, so Activision had given us carte blanche to start brainstorming ideas inspired by the comic books, not the movies. So we started to look for anything that hadn’t been seen in a game before. There had already been a few Spider-Man games out there, but our Senior Producer was a huge comic book fan and he started talking about Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man Noir, and so on, who I’d never heard of before, and so we came up with this idea of playing multiple Spider-Men within the multiverse. From there, we could create four different universes with their own art styles and a Megaman structure where players fought a boss per level, which we thought was a nice twist on the Spider-Man open world tradition.”

“Shattered Dimensions was the game we had the most fun creating. It was the most chaotic development, but this idea of coming up with four distinctive art directions injected a lot of personality into the level design and boss battles. I wish we could have done a Shattered Dimensions 2, as there’s so much content to draw inspiration from in the comics. Now, of course, the industry has evolved, but after the first game I wish we could have jumped right into the sequel, because I loved the formula and approach we had.” 

Spider-Man: Edge of Time (2011)

After the success of Shattered Dimensions, Beenox was in the unfortunate position of attempting to follow up on struck gold with limited resources. Edge of Time took place in two different Spider-Man universes, down from Shattered Dimension’s four, as the Amazing Spider-Man worked with Spider-Man 2099 to stop a powerful foe that threatened them both. Many found Edge of Time to be strangely limited and repetitive compared to the previous game, but Wilson explains that Beenox had been under a lot of pressure. 

“The big difference with Edge of Time is that we had very little development time, and I guess that’s the reason why some of the fans were potentially disappointed that it was half of what Shattered Dimensions had been. It was a situation where a game needed to be released quickly, so the decision was made to focus exclusively on Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man 2099, as we knew that it was a storyline that we’d seen in the comic books.” 

“There was this cause and effect gameplay idea where what you were doing in the Amazing Spider-Man time period would affect what was going on the future, so there was a few situations where we had a picture-in-picture experience where a villain was killing Spider-Man 2099 and you had to defeat him in the other timeline first. It was definitely a smaller game, though, and I think that’s where it really fell short.”

The Amazing Spider-Man (2012)

With two original Spidey titles to its name, Beenox was eventually put to work by Activision on a movie tie-in game to The Amazing Spider-Man reboot starring Andrew Garfield. It would mark the first time in a long time that players could get back to liberally swinging around Manhattan as the webhead in a video game, and Wilson welcomed the challenge to return the character to an open-world after his brief stint with linearity. 

“We worked closely with Marvel and Sony to understand what their vision for this reboot was, and what we could do to come up with something that was tied to the movie. So we returned to Manhattan and, using our technology, we basically created a city editor that let our artists build the city from scratch. We went on location and took a lot of pictures to get references; we’re not New Yorkers, so we wanted to make sure that we created a city that was close enough to the real thing.”

“This was right around the time developers were no longer just recreating the movie’s story in a tie-in game. The tendency was to make a game inspired by the movie but not bound to the same narrative, so from that point on we had quite a lot of freedom to look for things that we thought would make sense within the world of the Amazing Spider-Man. It’s a process that required us to talk to Marvel’s experts and to Sony to explain our intentions, but they felt pretty good about our approach and so from there it’s just a matter of working with writers to validate that with Marvel.”

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014)

As Garfield’s nascent franchise received a hastily made sequel, so too did Beenox’s movie tie-in series. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was probably the studio’s least well received Spider-Man game of the four, especially as this was Spidey’s first appearance on current-gen consoles, but looked about as technically proficient as an Xbox 360 launch title. Wilson readily admits that it was not the game he’d hope to have finished Beenox’s journey with Spider-Man on. 

“There was another movie coming, and we tried to make improvements on the game on a whole bunch of fronts. The graphical fidelity of the city, the combat, adding stealth missions, and so on… but I made one of the worst design decisions of my entire career in that game!” 

“We created what we called the ‘Hero or Menace’ system, which was a good idea on paper, where Spider-Man had a reputation meter that went up or down depending on whether the player was taking care of crime or not, but we ran out of varied mission design, so it just felt repetitive and penalising. That hurt us in the reviews when the game came out, and I apologise for that! Sometimes you think something is good, but by the time you realise it isn’t, it’s way too late in development to remove it, so we just tried refining it as much as we could before release.” 

Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018)

So, now that the property is off his and Beenox’s hands, what does Wilson make of Insomniac’s Spider-Man game, and of the evolved superhero genre at large? You won’t be too surprised to hear he’s just as full of praise for the studio as everyone else is right now. 

“I think Insomniac taking over the reins of Spider-Man is great. I’m a huge fan of their games and I’ve been playing them for a long time, so I was watching closely when I found out they were developing it. I haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but I’m look forward to trying it out. What I’ve seen so far looks great!” 

“I will say it brings back nostalgia, especially as in their case they’ve had like five years of development to make the game. I only wish we had five years on any one of the Spider-Man games we made! Superheroes are great characters to be making games for, and working on them is a lot of fun. To me, it doesn’t matter how the characters evolve in the theaters, because you can pretty much dive into the content that each movie offers to make a game of your choice.” 

From superheroes to super soldiers

At the moment, Wilson and the rest of Beenox are hard at work helping Treyarch bring Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 (opens in new tab) to PC, which he calls a “AAA PC title with all the bells and whistles that involves”, but the studio’s co-head promises big things from the studio in the long term. 

“I can’t really talk about it, but all I can say is that what’s coming is super exciting. We have a great future in front of us, and Activision is a big family so there’s a lot of opportunity to work on some very cool titles. You just look back to our first title, a tie-in game to Bee Movie, and you can see it’s been quite a journey for the past 13 years. I feel very privileged to be a part of it all.” 

For more vigilante antics, check out our run down of the best superhero movies (opens in new tab) of all time, and count how many Spideys make the cut. 

The post “I wish we couldve made Shattered Dimensions 2”: Looking back at Beenox’s history of Spider-Man games with studio co-head Thomas Wilson appeared first on Game News.

Over the next week or so, we’ll be sharing chats with Andrew Garfield, Rhys Ifans and director Marc Webb, but first up is the charming and funny leading lady Emma Stone.

Best known on screen for her conker-red hair, Stone reverted to her natural blonde look to play Gwen Stacy, one of Peter Parker’s most significant comic-book love interests. The hair colour isn’t the only thing that’ll distinguish Stone’s Stacy from Kirsten Dunst’s Mary-Jane, though, as she provides a natural warmth and wit that was lacking in Sam Raimi’s leading lady.

We caught up with the Easy A and Crazy, Stupid, Love actress at the Sony press junket in Cancun, and you can read the full interview below to find out Stone’s thoughts on the comic books, her chemistry with Andrew Garfield, and the on-set pranking that went on.

“Her boyfriend is in the face of death every day, which is just like her father, which is kind of a little bit of an Electra complex thing… Not to get too heady about it [ laughs ].

“I’m so lucky that I’ve gotten to play independent, smart women that are strong and sure of themselves. But there’s something about Gwen that is kind of the ultimate damsel in distress and I was also attracted to that, to that side of women that [ says ], ‘Wait! Save me!’”

Do you think this is the time for independent women?

“Absolutely! Oh yeah, absolutely. But I think there are all types of women, and Gwen’s first incarnation was in the ‘60s, and it’s exciting as an actor to get to play all the facets of people, you don’t want to limit yourself.

“This was like during The Help , when people were getting down on Viola [ Davis ] for playing a maid. ‘Why are you playing a maid when we’ve gotten so far past this?’ And she said, ‘I’m playing a person. I was telling a story.’

“And it’s unfair to say only strong, independent characters should exist in the world, because that’s not the only kind of people that exist in the world. Gwen does have a ton of those elements. I mean, she is valedictorian and incredibly bright and has her whole life planned out ahead of her, but there’s also that element to her that is a damsel in a way.”

“Does that sound fucked up? I thought it was awesome. I just thought it was just staggering, and so bold. And I know people boycotted the comics when it happened. It’s a really wild and oddly very exciting element for me to play. There’s a little insight into my psyche.”

It’s become a comic-book joke, that Gwen’s the only character who dies and doesn’t come back to life…

“Yeah. I mean… well, it’s gonna be interesting.”

Can we expect any upside-down kissing in this movie?

“No upside-down kissing this go round. That was such a good kiss [ in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man ].”

Is the chemistry between you and Andrew easy?

“Well, I think the thing about chemistry is – I might be wrong, other people might disagree with me – but it’s kinda hard to build chemistry. To build a relationship is one thing, but chemistry is so…

“You either have that thing – that rapport, and you get each other – or you don’t. And so the chemistry part was nice because he was just really easy to get along with instantly, but then you’re building the character.

“And Marc [ Webb – director ] giving us the opportunity to improvise a lot was really beneficial for building that relationship, just because falling in love for the first time as those people is awkward and uncomfortable and you’re 17 and you’re finding your footing in that way, so it was nice to be able to build that.”

“And also learning about science oddly enough, was really helpful. Learning about regeneration and going to science labs and learning about biology and understanding that passion and the logical-mindedness of putting those things together was helpful for Gwen.”

“But it was great, it was fun. Everybody really got along pretty well. It was a good experience. It was a long one – six months.”

Did you ever pull pranks on each other?

“Sort of. I think Andrew and I pulled a couple of pranks on each other like parking my car in front of his trailer so he couldn’t get in, and then he put my car on one of the soundstages with a note on it that said ‘Move your car, asshole!’ In the middle of the stage!

“We were just inspired because Jonah Hill and Brad Pitt had just done Moneyball , and Brad Pitt’s, like, a super-prankster and one of our make-up people had worked on Moneyball and she was like ‘Oh my god, you guys, you should hear about all the pranks’, and we were like, ‘We wanna do pranks too!’

“Those were like the two pranks we did, which were so lame compared to what Brad Pitt does.”

This is your first big blockbuster movie, what the most tedious part of the process? The travelling? The press junkets?

“For The Help we travelled a fair amount too. I guess the most tedious part is answering the same question over and over. But people don’t ask that question a lot, so don’t think this is one of them, because it’s not! I hate explaining the character and I hate explaining the plot.”

“And then the only other part is the jetlag. It’s, like, soooo brutal. It’s so brutal, it really makes you feel like a crazy person especially when your answering the same question over and over, and you think ‘Am I hallucinating?’”

The post Emma Stone talks The Amazing Spider-Mans Gwen Stacy: interview appeared first on Game News.

The Amazing Spider-Man may not be in cinemas for another couple of months, but Sony aren’t resting on their laurels, as proven by the announcement that the sequel will go into production in early 2013.

A first draft of the script had previously been written by James Vanderbilt, but the studio has now revealed that screenwriting duo Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci ( Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen ) have been brought in to give it a rewrite.

“We grew up as huge Spider-Man fans,” said the pair in an official statement, “so, to us, the opportunity to work on this film is akin to being handed the Holy Grail. We love the direction Sony and the filmmakers are taking the Peter Parker / Spider-Man mythology and we couldn’t be more excited to be a part of this legendary franchise.”

“It’s a thrill to have Alex and Bob put their stamp on this franchise that we all love so well,” said Producer Avi Arad. “They have an innate understanding of what makes Peter Parker not just a superhero, but a hero for all of us.”

The film is currently scheduled to open in the US on 2 May 2014, with first outing The Amazing Spider-Man opening over here on 4 July 2012. It seems as though Sony have big plans for their friendly neighbourhood web-slinger…

The post The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will go into production in 2013 appeared first on Game News.

The Amazing Spider-Man has made much of its telling of “the untold story” in its press materials, and director Marc Webb has revealed that a slightly different origin story will play out across his movie and its potential sequels.

“I wanted to give the audience something new, so that started off with getting underneath the parents’ story, which will unfold over probably a few movies,” Webb told MTV . “We don’t totally wrap up that story in this first movie. It’s sort of an ongoing mystery. That was something that was interesting to me.”

The death of Peter Parker’s parents was never really dealt with in Sam Raimi’s adaptation, but according to Webb, it was one of the key elements that drew him to the film.

“There are elements that we were very conscious of,” he says, “but it all emanated from [ the idea of ] this kid who got left behind by his parents many, many years before. I thought that was interesting enough for me to explore.”

“This is probably a reveal,” he continues, “but there is no wrestling match in this movie. The character is evolving in a different way. It’s about finding a balance between iconic elements of the Spider-Man mythology. Uncle Ben’s death transforms him emotionally, but it happens in a different way.”

The Amazing Spider-Man opens in the UK on 4 July 2012.

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