Marvel's Spider-Man is a series of superhero action-adventure video games developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation consoles and Windows. Based on characters appearing in Marvel Comics publications, the games are inspired by the long-running comic book lore, while additionally deriving from various adaptations in other media. The series principally follows protagonists Peter Parker and Miles Morales who fight crime in New York City as dual bearers of the eponymous superhero persona while dealing with the complications of their civilian lives.

Marvel Games entered negotiations with SIE regarding developing third party games based on their characters, leading to frequent collaborative studio Insomniac Games being selected to acquire the license for the Spider-Man character from Activision in 2014. The series began with Marvel's Spider-Man and its subsequent downloadable content (DLC) expansion The City That Never Sleeps, which was released on the PlayStation 4 in late 2018; the game and its DLC were later collected together and released as a remastered version for the PlayStation 5 in November 2020 and Windows in August 2022. A direct spin-off title, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, was released on the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in November 2020 alongside Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, with a Windows port released in November 2022. A sequel to the original game and the Miles Morales spin-off, Marvel's Spider-Man 2, was released for the PlayStation 5 in October 2023. A third entry, Marvel's Spider-Man 3, is in development.

The series is set in a shared universe in a similar fashion to the Marvel Universe of the comic books, being supported by other standalone games developed by Insomniac Games that share continuity with the studio's Spider-Man titles. Marvel's Wolverine, a game focused on the titular character, is in development for the PlayStation 5. A standalone Venom game^{[lower-alpha 2]} following his appearance in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, is currently in development. Marvel's X-Men, a game focusing on the team of the same name, is planned.

The currently released main entries in the Marvel's Spider-Man series have been met with positive commercial success and critical acclaim, with praise for their narratives, characters, world design, voice acting, graphics, and gameplay. Various tie-in novels by Titan Books and comic books published by Marvel Comics have been released, expanding the games' universe. Insomniac's version of Peter Parker also appears in the comic book event Spider-Geddon (2018), which designated the series as taking place on "Earth-1048" in the larger Marvel Comics multiverse. Parker also makes a cameo appearance in the animated film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse (2023), with Yuri Lowenthal briefly reprising his role.

Video games featuring Marvel Comics characters were primarily developed and published by Activision since 1998, with the character Spider-Man appearing in multiple titles both as the primary playable character and as a supporting character since 2000.^[1] However, as Marvel Games vice president Jay Ong would come to reflect on in 2016, the terms of Marvel and Activision's deal necessitated quicker development periods on games in order to tie such products into upcoming films based around Marvel properties. Ong would reminisce about how it was "difficult to succeed" under those circumstances as a result of instances where "there wasn't enough time to come out with something truly terrific".^[2] Dissatisfied with the eventual output of the publisher, Marvel Games would elect to terminate their partnership with Activision in 2014 just prior to the release of the movie tie-in game, The Amazing Spider-Man 2.^[3][4] During a meeting with executives from the publishing firm, Ong would be asked by Activision, "What are you going to do with this IP after you get it back?". Ong would cite a need to "find a better home for it" in response, with the publisher's representative taunting him in return, "Good luck finding your unicorn".^[5]

To rejuvenate the IP, Ong's primary objective was to find "a publishing partner who hadn't adopted the "crappy licensed games" mentality", as well as one with "a vested interest that would benefit from building a franchise".^[6] In particular, Marvel Games were looking to create a gaming IP around one of their characters that would rival the likes of the Batman: Arkham series from WB Games and Rocksteady Studios, credited with legitimizing and popularizing video game adaptations based on comic book characters.^[7] The primary candidates considered for spearheading Marvel's new commitment to AAA games were Microsoft Studios, Sony Interactive Entertainment and Nintendo. Nintendo was ruled out initially as a result of the technical limitations of the Nintendo Switch as well as the publisher's perceived dedication to pursuing games using their own characters and franchises (though they would eventually collaborate with Marvel in developing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order (2019) for Nintendo Switch^[8]), while Microsoft turned down Marvel's offer due to a desire to focus on building their own IP (They would later collaborate with Marvel on producing the upcoming Marvel's Blade through publisher Bethesda Softworks^[9]).^[10] Eventually, Jay Ong would meet with Sony executives Adam Boyes and John Drake, in order to pitch an overall development deal with Marvel, with the hope that they could collaborate and "beat Arkham and have one game at least and maybe multiple games that could drive adoption", of Sony's PlayStation platforms.^[11][5]

SIE eventually signed off on the deal, prompting their Vice President of Product Development Connie Booth to visit developer Insomniac Games in order to speak with studio CEO Ted Price, with discussions about the potential Marvel project being held off-the-record.^[12][13] Price was described as being "fairly neutral" towards the prospects of developing a game based on a Marvel Comics property, as Insomniac up to that point purely worked on their own original franchises, but his development team were comparatively enthusiastic about the project.^[14] As Marvel allowed Insomniac to select any of their characters to adapt, the team decided on Spider-Man as a result of being able to relate to the dynamic presented between the heroic Spider-Man and his everyman alter-ego, Peter Parker.^[14] They would also come to find the task of adapting the character daunting, as a result of his popularity, in addition to the numerous existing stories and interpretations of the character both in comics and in other media. However, they also welcomed the challenge, particularly art director Jacinda Chew, who consulted online resources and various Marvel staff in order to cultivate extensive knowledge of the character.^[13]

Creative director Bryan Intihar said: "I feel like he's the most relatable of the heroes. As much as I love Tony Stark, it's harder to identify with a billionaire. As much as I love Thor, it's hard to identify with a god. Peter makes mistakes, he has ups and downs in his career, his relationships, his family. I think we can all relate to that".^[13] Price also commented that Spider-Man "is so human, and he's so relatable. He's also the most popular Marvel character in the world, I think". Price also considered the technical benefits; Sunset Overdrive has a dynamic traversal system that could be built upon for Spider-Man.^[15] Spider-Man became the first licensed property developed by Insomniac in its then 22-year existence.^[12]

Upon the announcement of the spin-off title Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5,^[16] Sony vice president Simon Rutter told The Telegraph that the game was "an expansion and an enhancement to the previous game", while Insomniac later called the project a standalone game, stating that it is "the next adventure in the Marvel's Spider-Man universe". It is smaller in size and scope than Spider-Man, and has been compared to Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, a game which served as a standalone expansion that was smaller in size and scope than a mainline Uncharted title. The game was additionally described as featuring "a new story, with new set-pieces, fresh villains, and unique quests".^[17]

During the development of Marvel's Spider-Man, Insomniac, Marvel and SIE discussed prospects for future games based on Marvel Comics properties beyond Spider-Man, with the team at Insomniac continually suggesting their desire to work on a game featuring Wolverine. The development team were drawn to the character through the similar moral compass he shares with Spider-Man, notably the fact that "both heroes feel deeply compelled to defend people who are less able to do so". Insomniac eventually elected to pitch this idea to both Marvel and Sony as their next licensed property following their successful collaboration with the two parties on developing Marvel's Spider-Man.^[18] Marvel's Wolverine is currently being developed alongside Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (2023), which was jointly announced in September 2021.^[19] For the latter game, Bryan Intihar and Ryan Smith serve as the game's creative and game directors, respectively reprising their roles from Spider-Man.^{[citation needed]}

Marvel's Spider-Man series was later released on Windows alongside the existing PlayStation versions starting with Spider-Man Remastered in August 2022, and Miles Morales later that November, marking another push by the publisher to release its various PlayStation Studios titles on PC. A support studio Nixxes Software, whom Sony acquired in July 2021, helped in porting the games to PC.^{[20][21][22][23]}

In December 2023, Insomniac Games was subjected to a ransomware attack by the group Rhysida, who successfully breached approximately 1.67 terabytes (TB) of studio assets, such as development documents, internal financial forecasts, and compromising sensitive information pertaining to various employees and staff members at the developer.^[24] Following the initial attack, Rhysida threatened to release all procured images and resources obtained from the hack seven days from the incident, additionally holding an auction for the data with a starting price at 50 Bitcoin, equivalent to $2 million USD. Sony Interactive Entertainment issued a statement to Video Games Chronicle stating their intent to investigate the reports surrounding the hack, but did not anticipate the incident to affect other divisions of SIE or Sony Corporation as a whole.^[25] Upon the deadline's conclusion, company information including employee data, model dumps and pre-production slates for various games in development were published online. The materials principally concerned production assets related to Marvel's Wolverine, but also comprised other assets that alluded to the existence of multiple other Marvel video games at various stages in development, such as a standalone Venom spin-off game, Marvel's Spider-Man 3, and a previously canceled multiplayer game titled Marvel's Spider-Man: The Great Web that derived heavily from the concept of the "Spider-Verse" and featured a playable roster of alternate Spider-People. Other projects included proposed online expansions for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Marvel's Wolverine, and Marvel's X-Men, a standalone game focusing on the team of the same name that was expected to narratively follow Marvel's Wolverine.^{[26][27][28][29][30]} Additionally, an internal presentation detailing the royalty and exclusivity margins between Sony Interactive Entertainment and Marvel, revealed that the publisher had signed a new agreement for Insomniac Games to develop licensed X-Men video games until 2035, with the expectation that Marvel's Wolverine would begin a standalone trilogy of games centered around mutant characters in a similar vein to the Spider-Man games.^[31][32]

The three currently released games in the Marvel's Spider-Man series have been met with favorable reception and commercial success. Critics have cited Marvel's Spider-Man (2018) as one of the best comic book-based games ever created, with outlets such as VentureBeat and Game Informer positively comparing the game to Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009), a game that was similarly praised for breaking conventions associated with games based on comic book characters with its reinterpretation of the mythos.^[139][140] The game's mechanics were another point of praise, with many lauding the innovations and refinements made to the web-swinging and traversal systems. EGMNOW commented on the gameplay in Marvel's Spider-Man being more streamlined compared to the similar functions present in the video game adaptation Spider-Man 2 (2004).^[141] The combat was similarly praised for its fluidity and emphasis on gadgetry and utilization of the environment for performing attacks,^[140][142] with IGN further observing how the depth of the game's combat system allowed for improvization.^[143] The story received particular praise from critics and fans. USGamer specifically cited the narrative as the game's strongest aspect and highlighted the story's interpretation of the title character and his supporting cast,^[144] while GamesRadar+ described its characters as being voiced and performed with unexpected depth and charisma.^[145] The Remastered port for PlayStation 5 and PC received additional praise for its updated presentation, improvements to technical details such as facial and hair textures, and additional quality-of-life improvements that brought the game in closer parity with Miles Morales, although the replacement of John Bubinak with Ben Jordan as the facial capture model for Peter Parker garnered a mixed response.^[146][147] The PC version was particularly applauded for its optimization for the platform and seamless compatibility on the Steam Deck.^{[148][149][150]}

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020) also enjoyed similarly favorable reviews. Jonathon Dornbush of IGN enjoyed the new PS5 enhancements of the game and the more compelling side content.^[151] Destructoid's Chris Carter praised the game's story and Miles' new abilities.^[152] Andrew Reiner of Game Informer appreciated the improvements to combat and the area of Harlem.^[153]

• Spider-Man in video games
• List of video games featuring the X-Men
• Wolverine in other media
• Marvel Games