When Mister Negative threatens to release a deadly virus, Spider-Man must confront him and protect the city while dealing with the personal problems of his civilian persona, Peter Parker.

Spider-Man can freely move around New York City, interacting with characters, undertaking missions, and unlocking new gadgets and suits by progressing through the main story or completing tasks.

Insomniac was given the choice of using any character from Marvel's catalog to work on; Spider-Man was chosen both for his appeal to the employees and the similarities in traversal gameplay to their previous game Sunset Overdrive (2014).

Many of these offer special abilities that can aid in combat, such as increasing Focus gain, reducing gravity, enhancing stealth, making the player invulnerable, and unleashing an electromagnetic pulse to disable enemy weapons.

Peter is assisted by Daily Bugle reporter Mary Jane Watson (Laura Bailey),[26] his ex-girlfriend,[27][6] and NYPD captain Yuri Watanabe (Tara Platt).

[6][32] Spider-Man must also confront Electro (Josh Keaton), Rhino (Fred Tatasciore), Scorpion (Jason Spisak), Vulture (Dwight Schultz),[30] Shocker (Dave B. Mitchell), Taskmaster (Brian Bloom), Screwball (Stephanie Lemelin), and Tombstone (Corey Jones).

Several other characters—including Peter and Mary Jane's childhood friend Harry Osborn (Scott Porter),[31] who is supposed to be vacationing in Europe,[33] and anti-Spider-Man podcast host J. Jonah Jameson (Darin De Paul)—have voice roles in the main game.

[34] The game's downloadable content features appearances by master-thief Black Cat (Erica Lindbeck[35][36]), Maggia mobster Hammerhead (Keith Silverstein),[37] and Felicia's father Walter Hardy (Daniel Riordan).

While searching for Li, Spider-Man discovers that Devil's Breath is a lethal, virulent bioweapon inadvertently created by Oscorp while developing a cure for genetic diseases.

[33] Marvel's Spider-Man came about after Sony Interactive Entertainment's Vice President of Product Development Connie Booth visited Insomniac Games to speak with CEO Ted Price.

[42] Insomniac had recently released its Xbox One-exclusive game Sunset Overdrive; without a formal agreement in place, discussions about the potential new project were held off the record.

He said they wanted to keep players engaged, starting with the Marvel's Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps downloadable content (DLC), whose story continues after the conclusion of the main game.

[27][50] Insomniac researched iterations of the character to understand the elements that make a compelling Spider-Man story, after which Paquette wanted to avoid drawing too much influence from any single version.

Chew researched Otto's historical comic-book depiction and design, noting his bowl cut hairstyle and green glasses, but chose to modernize his appearance to make him balding and nerdy.

The death of Aunt May at the end of the game was considered vital to Peter's growth and a challenge because May has a large role in historical Spider-Man stories; Paquette said the moment had to be earned.

His ally police chief captain Yuri Watanabe was written as a kindred spirit who shares with Spider-Man a sense of responsibility to protect the city and its inhabitants regardless of the personal cost.

Mister Negative was initially designed as a young rebel wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses; the progression of the story influenced the character and the decision was made to better reflect his true nature, giving him a black-and-white suit showing his human and transformed negative-photo-effect persona.

An unknown person had the idea of merging the Vulture and Electro fights, assembling a short demo to show it working as an aerial battle, which is how it appears in the finished game.

The central theme is even interwoven with villain scores—a technique Paesano compared to composer John Williams' work on Star Wars—to remind the audience that everything is part of Peter's story.

"Be Greater", a 90-second advertisement highlighting Spider-Man's battle against foes including Rhino and Scorpion was run during the 2018 NFL Kickoff Game, which had approximately 19.5 million viewers.

The book introduces the game's version of Echo, a deaf, female martial artist who joins forces with Spider-Man, and Blood Spider, a villain given superhuman abilities by Oscorp, and employed by Kingpin.

[63] The game's version of Spider-Man appears in the 2018 comic book story Spider-Geddon written by Gage, a sequel to 2014's Spider-Verse that brings together Spider-people from different Marvel realities.

The series is published by Marvel, written by Dennis Hopeless, and includes art by Michelle Bandini and variant covers by Clayton Crain, David Nakayama, Gerardo Sandoval and Adi Granov.

Also written by Hopeless, with art by Emilio Laiso, the miniseries takes place after the events of the game, detailing Spider-Man's encounter with the supervillain Swarm, and Mary Jane's work with reporter Ben Urich.

Written by Hopeless with art by Luca Maresca, the miniseries adapts the events of the downloadable content The City That Never Sleeps while elaborating upon Spider-Man and Black Cat's relationship.

[90][91] The Collector's Edition includes The City That Never Sleeps DLC, a custom steelbook case for the game, an artbook containing concept and unreleased art, a white spider sticker, and a Spider-Man statue created by Gentle Giant.

[96] A port of Remastered for Windows developed in collaboration with PlayStation sister studio Nixxes Software, was released as a standalone title for Steam and the Epic Games Store on August 12, 2022.

[102] EGMNOW and GameSpot compared the movement system with the Batman: Arkham series; the latter wrote that the inspired combat "suitably characterizes Spidey's acrobatic nature".

They praised the focus on Peter Parker and highlighted voice actor Yuri Lowenthal for having "an emotional honesty" in this version of Spider-Man that made it one of their favorite portrayals of the character.

[1] The story takes place roughly a year after the first game's conclusion, with players controlling Miles, as New York City's only Spider-Man while Peter has travelled to Symkaria as a photographer to cover an ongoing civil war.