Spider-Man 2's gameplay reveal has taken the world by storm since it closed the PlayStation Showcase earlier this week, but nothing in life is perfect. If you were looking to find fault with the trailer, you will have found plenty. Kraven, despite a cool design that sticks to his comic origins, has an inescapably silly motivation. The decision to give Peter the symbiote suit, possibly at the cost of a true Venom character, could be seen as controversial or played out. The suits have new looks, which seem a little overdesigned. Peter's symbiote voice feels forced, although that may be the point. Some of Miles 'non-lethal' takedowns seem like false advertising. Those excited for the game will point out that these are minor criticisms, and they're right - but at least they're real criticisms. Complaints about the water are not, and they're extremely tiresome.
It's 2018 all over again. When Insomniac’s first Spider-Man game launched, there was a strange corner of the internet upset that the puddles didn't look as detailed as they did in the E3 2017 gameplay footage. Now, we're going bigger and better for the sequel - this time it's the Hudson River that sucks. In a cutscene, Miles floats in the water, and some have taken to social media to complain about the dated splash effects, the lack of interaction between Miles and the water’s surface, and the fact Miles himself appears to remain dry despite being submerged. These are incredibly minor faults to pick with a short cutscene after a much longer sequence that takes place in water seamlessly - an additional feature from the original I might add - and they're not being picked for any reason other than some fans spoiling for a fight.
You don't need to like Spider-Man 2. You can have superhero fatigue, you can dislike the checkbox-style triple-A formula it's built on, you can be put off by Sony's increasing tendency to play it safe, which is opposed to its experimental legacy. But the water can't be the reason why. Scratch that, it's not the reason why. Those of you complaining about it are pretending, you are lying. That wouldn't really matter if not for the fact that there are some interesting potential pitfalls Spider-Man 2 will have to avoid, and the fact it further feeds an increasingly obnoxious and toxic culture war that infests video game discussions on the internet.
Spider-Man is something of an outlier in the triple-A space, despite its admittedly generic formula. It has been five years since the first Spider-Man game launched, and in that time Insomniac has shipped a spin-off and a remaster, as well as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. Not to mention Wolverine is on the docket for next year too. Considering Insomniac also advocates against crunch culture, I think we'd all agree we prefer games being made in this way, and these complaints are not only petty, but if they reach the wrong ears, they're damaging.
Red Dead Redemption 2 took eight years to develop, and when you look at the attention to detail, the impressive visuals, the intelligent world that reacts to your presence, you can see where those eight years went. If you look at other success stories, you'll see similarly drawn out development times. But if you peer beneath the surface, you'll find a lot of time wasted. There were nine years between Arkham Origins and Gotham Knights, and while the studio did do some minor DLC work for Arkham Knight in that time, I think everyone involved would agree those nine years could have been better spent. Saints Row (2022) came five years after the studio's previous game, although there was an acquisition in the middle worth taking into account. Arkane Austin made Prey, then six years later, made Redfall. Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League will arrive eight years after its studio's previous game, and is expected to continue the sad trend.
There are a variety of reasons why the games listed above failed, but the fact is their long development cycles did nothing but cost money and cause bloated issues that evidently the studios found impossible to fix. It would be one thing if you actually cared about the Spider-Man water, if you were so 4K-pilled that subpar splash effects posed a significant barrier to your enjoyment. Then I could meet you rationally and explain that Insomniac makes high-quality games with a turnaround time that far exceeds the typical rate and does it without crunching its workers, and we could have an honest chat about how much the water texture occasionally being muddy feels like a sensible sacrifice for that. But you don't actually care, you just don't like Spider-Man, or don't like PlayStation, or just like being angry. Whatever the reason is, I can only hope people continue to call you out so studios don't feel like they need to spend years chasing perfection, only to fall short, rather than aiming for the more sensible strategy of Insomniac.
Obviously Insomniac is in a far more privileged position than some studios, and has a lot of experience behind it, but it's also adept at cutting corners. Some characters (and famously, pigeons) looked like they'd be more at home on Spider-Man PS1 than PS4, but nobody sensible cared because these characters were shoved out of the way and everything we needed to see looked gorgeous. Right down to the puddles. The water never mattered then, and it doesn't matter now.