October is shaping up to be an exciting month for Sony’s gaming ecosystem thanks to the highly anticipated launch of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Since 2018, Insomniac Games has not missed a step with its series of action-adventure games based on the comic book superhero, with Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales often being the cause for prospective console buyers to gravitate to PlayStation systems.
With Spider-Man 2 set to be the latest entry in the series, however, it’s certainly no surprise that many are wondering just how exclusive the first-party title will be. After all, Spider-Man was originally released solely for the PS4 in 2018 before being remastered for the PS5 in 2020, while Spider-Man: Miles Morales dropped for both generations of consoles at launch.
Here’s the latest on whether or not Spider-Man 2 is going to be released on PlayStation 4.
Is Spider-Man 2 going to be on PS4?
Unfortunately, Spider-Man 2 will not be available on PlayStation 4 at launch. The game is set to release exclusively for PS5 on Oct. 20, and there have yet to be any indications of a PS4 version planned to be in the works post-launch.
Throughout Insomniac Games’ marketing cycle for Spider-Man 2 since its initial announcement in 2021, the focus hasn’t necessarily been on why it’s ditching the PS4, but why developing it exclusively for PS5 has allowed the team to push new boundaries for the game.
For instance, beyond the ability to produce better visuals via ray tracing and take advantage of haptic upgrades tied to the PS5’s DualSense controller, a main advantage stemming from building the game from the ground up for Sony’s next-gen console appears to revolve around near-instant character switching.
Thanks to Peter Parker and Miles Morales sharing the spotlight in Spider-Man 2, players will be able to swap between their locations in the city nearly instantly at a button press—a feature Insomniac Games credits to the PS5’s SSD.
Meanwhile, Spider-Man 2’s doubled map size itself has also been partly credited to the PS5, which is set to extend beyond Manhattan to include Brooklyn and Queens.
Of course, until we get a definitive answer from Insomniac Games on the matter, the prospect of a last-gen port for Spider-Man 2 arriving sometime in the future can’t be completely ruled out. Until that happens, though, a PS4 release of the game does seem very unlikely due to its emphasis on showcasing the brightest parts of the PS5.
