If you or someone you know owns a Playstation 4, there’s a high chance that this weekend you or they are spending all their free time playing Marvel’s Spider-Man.
And rightly so: it’s the first game that truly delivers on the promises first made to us back in 2004 with the Spider-Man 2 movie tie-in video game. It offers a game that’s part adventure, part cool beat-em-up, with a whole heap of web-swinging, motion-sickness goodness in between.
The whole thing feels like it’s a rumble seat short of being one of those Movie World rides, and that’s better than what we could’ve ever hoped for or imagined, to be honest.
But, in addition to being a super-fun time, the game is full of references, Easter Eggs, and callbacks to Marvel lore. Not only does it help to give the world of Peter Parker’s Manhattan a lived-in feel, it’s also super-fun to search out, especially if you (like me) have been following the Marvel movies and TV shows near-religiously since Iron Man graced our screens in 2008.
It’s a reference about references! Reference-ception!
Most of Spider-Man’s references come in the form of landmarks throughout Manhattan Island, as well as few scattered collectibles. The easter eggs cover everything from the rest of the Marvel Universe, to some of Spider-Man’s past video-game incarnations. Here’s some of the bigger ones we found.
It goes without saying, but: MINOR SPOILERS FOLLOW.
The Wakandan Embassy
The home of Black Panther is represented by an embassy for the nation of Wakanda. Upon finding it for the first time, Parker wonders if T’Challa got his powers from “a radioactive panther”.
Sanctum Sanctorum
The fictional base of the Sorcerer Supreme himself, Doctor Strange, also gets a feature.
Alias Investigations
Maybe she just doesn’t want a real sign, okay?
Yep, Jessica Jones exists here. And it seems that her office is (still) in a state.
Murdock and Nelson: Attorneys at Law
The braille is a nice touch
Everyone’s favourite Avocados At Law come up a few times, with Spidey at point asking himself, “If he’s blind, how did Matt Murdock know that I was Spider-Man?”
The Wall Street bull gets an Inhuman replacement
Lockjaw, the super-powered dog, member of the Inhumans, and founding Pet Avenger, replaces the iconic bull of Wall Street.
Auerbach Theatres
Fans of the underrated Agent Carter would know that these theatres were a front for Strategic Scientific Reserve, the precursor to SHIELD.
Rand Corporation, From K’un-Lun to Manhattan
This wall has more range than Finn Jones.
The company belonging to one Danny Rand, AKA the Iron Fist, also makes an appearance. Reports suggest that this minor appearance has already gotten better reviews than Season 2 of Iron Fist on Netflix.
References to Spider-Man video games past
The balloon missions were the worst.
The developers even sneak in a few references to past video-games featuring Spider-Man. Pictured is an ode to the god-awful balloon missions from Spider-Man 2, but there are also references to dialogue from the Marvel vs Capcom games, and even a skatepark that’s reminiscent of Spidey’s cameo in Tony Hawk Pro Skater.
The iconic Big A of Avengers Tower
What’s New York without the Avengers Tower?
While most MCU fans will already be familiar with Avengers Tower, Spider-Man notes during the game that the tower has been empty since “the Avengers have started doing stuff on the West Coast”, which itself is a reference to the recently-relaunched West Coast Avengers comic book.
Some deep comic-book cuts
Expect to see a lot more of these guys in Marvel properties in the next few years.
As to be expected, there are some deep comic book cuts sprinkled throughout as well. The nefarious Roxxon Corp and A.I.M. both feature, as do Tony Stark’s Damage Control crew, and the embassy of the fictional Symkaria. Not to mention that there are more than a few call-backs to Spider-Man villains not featured in the game, but that’d be entering big spoiler-territory.
A throwback to the first appearance of Spider-Man
Spider-Man’s first appearance is referenced twice: first in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it scene at the beginning of the game, then as a collectible, where Peter Parker laments how impractical those webbed wings of his really were.
A cameo by You-Know-Who
BIG story-related story spoilers for this one, so watch with caution.
But really, it wouldn’t be a Marvel property without this guy popping up at least once, surely?
For an idea of how impressive the attention to detail is in this game: this isn’t even half of what we found after playing the game for a mere couple of days.
It’s also worth noting that Marvel’s Spider-Man is the first big project to come out of the new Marvel “Gamerverse”: after years of coasting off the back of the success of the Marvel vs Capcom series and a few moderate successes in the mobile game field, Marvel is making a proper move into the gaming sphere. An Avengers video-game, produced by Square Enix (AKA the team behind Final Fantasy and Kingdom Hearts), is set to the next major chapter of that plan.
That’s to say, this is hopefully just a sign of things to come for Marvel in the video-game world.