Spider-Man 2's creative director has addressed the video game cost versus length debate that sparked ahead of launch.
Fans looking forward to Insomniac Games' latest erupted in conversation when someone playing ahead of its October 20 release date leaked that achieving the Platinum Trophy (essentially 100% completion) took around 25 to 30 hours. Some fans noted this was similar to the original game and therefore fine while others grew upset after deeming Spider-Man 2 too short given its full price cost. Five IGN team members revealed their completion time in our How Long is Spider-Man 2? article. Our fastest player finished the story in 18 hours. Our “slowest” player spent 25 hours before credits rolled.
"For us, it really comes down to the experience we want to deliver with the quality we want to hit," Insomniac's Bryan Intihar told the BBC. "Obviously, there's a certain level of, 'hey, someone's going to spend this much money on a game', so we want to give them the experience that's worth it."
Spider-Man 2 is a full-priced PlayStation 5 game, meaning it costs $69.99. That's the same price as Elden Ring (which has a Platinum time of 80 to 100 hours), Baldur's Gate 3 (upwards of 100 hours), and Diablo 4 (150 to 200 hours).
It's also the same price as plenty of critically acclaimed games that can be 100% completed in similar or less amount of times though, and Intihar said it's less about completion time and more about quality for Insomniac. "Our job is to make sure that you feel no matter how long it is, it's worth that money, it's worth that investment," he said.
Insomniac will be looking to add more value to Spider-Man 2 post-launch though. It's releasing a New Game Plus mode by the end of 2023 alongside some other new features, though no full-on DLC has been confirmed yet.
In our 8/10 review of the game, IGN said: "Marvel's Spider-Man 2 delivers Insomniac's best tale yet, and despite its open world falling short, is a reliably fun superhero power trip."
Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelance reporter. He'll talk about The Witcher all day.
