Marvel's Avengers is due to launch on September 4, and PlayStation gamers look to be getting a pretty hefty extra if a deleted retail listing is anything to go by.
This was first revealed by retailer Base.com (well-spotted, VGC) and now by Sony Europe.
Spider-Man will be available in the game "exclusively on PS4", and presumably carrying through to the PlayStation 5 version, too.
Marvel's Avengers Will Offer PS4 Exclusive Spider-Man
Publisher Square Enix has previously confirmed that there will be "surprises for PlayStation players" as part of a global marketing deal with Sony, but keeping arguably Marvel's most iconic character on one side of the fence is sure to upset plenty of people.
Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man comes to Marvel's Avengers, exclusively on PlayStation. Crystal Dynamics offers early details on its own, unique take on the post-launch Hero: https://t.co/Xy1DR8HD9Qpic.twitter.com/xQ6dAkgfPn
— PlayStation Europe (@PlayStationEU)
August 3, 2020
Considering Sony already holds the movie rights to Spider-Man, not to mention the success of 2018's PS4 exclusive starring the wallcrawler, it's perhaps not surprising. We're curious to see if it'll be the same incarnation of the character, suggesting that both Insomniac and Crystal Dynamics' respective titles occur in the same universe - but that's probably just an MCU-inspired dream at this point.
The game's beta kicks off at the end of this week, and we also know that Hawkeye is coming as post-launch DLC. As a games-as-service-style game, Crystal Dynamics has promised new challenges, areas, and heroes added as free DLC.
We recently spoke to Scot Amos, the developer's studio head, who confirmed that Square Enix has put together a large team both internally and externally, referring to the amassed resources as a "staggering machine". Check out the full interview here.
UK retailer Base.com caused some confusion today when they confirmed that the information suggesting Spider-Man coming to Marvel's Avengers as a PS4 exclusive character was not true, and was not based on information from the publisher.
Speaking to IGN, a spokesperson said: "The information was removed from our product page as it was not correct. We removed the information as soon as we found out that it was not correct. It had been on the product since E3 June 2019 (11 June 2019)."