2018 Spider-man on PS5: it’s… complicated
By: Kostas Farkonas
Tags: Sony, Gaming, Playstation 5, PlayStation, Videogames

Road to NextGen 2020

2018 Spider-man on PS5: it’s… complicated

Sony finally explains and it might not be what many gamers wished for

There is a Marvel’s Spider-man of 2018 remastered version for the PS5… but you’ll have to buy the new one too in order to get it, apparently (Image credit: Sony)

It wouldn’t be a transition to a new generation of home entertainment systems without some growing pains — and that seems to be the case with the games themselves at the moment: backwards compatibility, free upgrades, timed upgrades, no upgrades, increased prices, same prices, you name it.

One would have thought that Sony, as experienced as they are in this whole gaming business thing by now, would know how to avoid such pitfalls. But that’s obviously not the case with Spider-man: Miles Morales, the crown jewel of PlayStation5’s lineup, and the 2018 Spider-man for the PS4.

The Japanese company had already announced that there is a remastered version of the 2018 Spider-man game for the PlayStation5 but a lot about how consumers can get hold of it remained vague. So Sony made the following statement to Kotaku regarding the situation of the two Spider-man games… somehow managing to complicate things even more:

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered is an enhanced version of Marvel’s Spider-Man, and is included as part of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition for the PlayStation 5. In addition, players who purchase Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PlayStation 4 can upgrade at no additional cost to the PS5 version of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and can take advantage of a paid-upgrade to download Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered. There are no plans currently to offer Marvel’s-Spider-Man: Remastered as a standalone. Players with a copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4 can purchase Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition to experience Marvel’s Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5. Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4 also will be backwards compatible on PS5.

So now consumers have the following options:

- PlayStation4 Spider-Man owners who want to play the upgraded version of this game on PlayStation5 will have to buy the Ultimate Edition of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales ($69.99/€79.99). There is currently no upgrade path for the remastered 2018 title, either free or paid.

- Consumers who will buy Spider-man: Miles Morales on the PlayStation 4 do get a free upgrade to the PlayStation 5 version of the new game. Then they can upgrade the PS5 version to the Ultimate Edition for $19.99/€19.99, which does include the remastered version of the 2018 Spider-man.

- Gamers who buy the standard version of Spider-man: Miles Morales on the PS5 can upgrade it to the Ultimate Edition for the same price in order to have access to the remastered 2018 Spider-man title.

- The 2018 Spider-man works normally on the PS5 via backwards compatibility but without all the technical bells and whistles of the remastered version (or any other improvement that we know of other than the quicker loading because of the PS5 SSD).

In a strange turn of events, you can’t buy just the remastered version of 2018 Spider-man on PS5 if you only want to play that. Miles will have to come along. (Image credit: Sony)

So, long story short: in order to get the remastered 2018 Spider-man on the PS5 one will have to buy Spider-man: Miles Morales either on the PS4 or the PS5. It’s hard to understand the logic behind this decision — well, other than higher sales for the new title — and it’s still possible for Sony to either change their minds if enough people complain or to offer the remastered Spider-man in standalone form on the PS Store some time after the launch of the PS5 (that’s what “currently” means in their statement).

Still, weird. Maximizing revenue is high on everyone’s list right now (what with the pandemic and its effects still unknown in the long term) but Sony could have given consumers more choice regarding the remastered Spider-man game. But hey. The Spider-man: Miles Morales Ultimate Edition for the PS5 does look like the less troublesome way to go right now at $69.99, doesn’t it? Mission accomplished!