Insomniac Games’ 2018’s Spider-Man video game was widely praised for its story that culminated in a memorable ending and climactic boss fight. However, that final battle was almost different, as explained by Insomniac CEO Ted Price. This article contains spoilers for Spider-Man.
Price spoke about this in a recent talk at the Develop:Brighton conference, as captured by GamesIndustry.biz. He covered crunch culture and burnout and said that developers need to find ways to work within limitations instead of trying to brute force through them. Planning and scope, according to him, play a big role in this.
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And to demonstrate his point, he used an example from Spider-Man. The game’s final fight against Doctor Octavius was originally going to be this huge battle across over New York City. However, when going to work on it, the team realized it was “way out of scope.” He then explained that their first inclination was just to push forward and “run through the brick wall” before realizing that that wasn’t the best idea for both the studio and the game.
“But the team took a step back and thought about what was important to the players, and that was the breakdown of the relationship between Peter and his former mentor, Doctor Octavius,” said Price. “They rethought the fight and realized they didn’t need to destroy half of New York to pay off the relationship. In fact, it would have worked against what we were going for. As a result, the final battle is much more up close and personal, and has a far bigger emotional impact than planned — and it fit within the time we had.”
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The fight with Doc Ock takes place on one building and the intimacy allows the two to clash on a human level as well as physically. Peter Parker and Otto were close so it makes sense for their fight to reflect that. Price spoke about how developers should work within their limitations and find creative solutions like this and that mentality comes from those in charge of a project. Price, who founded the developer in 1994 and has been leading it since, said leaders have to set the tone and that trying new things and failing is fine and that culture, along with creating a safe and diverse environment, is how the industry can change for the better.
