Marvel's Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps

***Marvel's Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps*** is a story-based three-episode downloadable content (DLC) pack developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for *Marvel's Spider-Man*. The episodes were released monthly from October 2018, beginning with "**The Heist**" on October 23. The second episode, "**Turf Wars**", was released on November 20, and the final episode, "**Silver Lining**", was released on December 21. Each episode adds extra content to the game, including new missions and characters, as well as additional suits to unlock.

The story takes place three months after the events of the main game and follows the return of Spider-Man's ex-girlfriend Black Cat (Felicia Hardy) to New York City for a heist, which takes him deep into the city's shadowy world of crime families and eventually a gang war with mob boss Hammerhead at the center.

Each of the three expansion episodes are individually as well as collectively available online at the PlayStation Store, and require the core game in order to be played. *The City That Never Sleeps* is also part of the Digital Deluxe Edition, Collector's Edition, and Game of the Year Edition bundles of *Marvel's Spider-Man*. The DLC is also collected alongside the main game in *Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered* for Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 5, the latter version being bundled with the "Ultimate Edition" of *Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales*.

## Plot

The DLC expansion story takes place after the first game's main story, and directly after its tie-in comic, *Velocity*.

### The Heist

Mary Jane Watson of the *Daily Bugle* is working on a story regarding the Maggia crime families and their activities now that the Kingpin and the Inner Demons are out of the way, leaving a power vacuum that each of the Maggia families want to claim. The police had raided one of the families recently and among the items recovered, was a lost masterpiece painting called "The Maria". The painting is currently on display at an art museum. Mary Jane receives a tip that one of the families is planning on stealing it back, and alerts Spider-Man.

Spider-Man investigates the museum and takes out several Maggia thugs before encountering Black Cat, who takes The Maria and breaks it in half, revealing that she is in fact after a data drive hidden within it before escaping. Apparently working for Hammerhead, one of the five Maggia dons, she has been hired to steal four data drives belonging to the other dons for him, which triggers a gang war between the families.

Spider-Man locates Black Cat and confronts her, wanting to know about the contents of the drives, to which she claims ignorance. When Spider-Man asks why she's working with Hammerhead, she reveals that he will kill her son if she doesn't and retreats. As Black Cat proceeds to steal more Maggia data drives throughout the city, Spider-Man learns from Mary Jane that long ago, the families agreed to put all their assets in one place to keep the peace. The information to access it was then split into five USB drives between the families. Whoever holds all the drives, can take the assets away from the other families and bankrupt them.

Spider-Man heads for the location of the last drive but Black Cat beats him there. After a long chase, he catches up to her. Explaining that he knows about the nature of the drives, he talks her into letting him help; she agrees to stall Hammerhead while Spider-Man finds her son. Black Cat then learns that Hammerhead recently purchased a massive vault to store high value items in, and contacts Spider-Man as she is positive the vault is where her son would be. Spider-Man locates the vault in a storage harbor on the Hudson River, and the two work together to take out Hammerhead's men guarding the area. Spider-Man takes the time of investigating the cargo crates and inside one of them, he learns that Hammerhead had stolen supplies of Sable International weapons and technology that were impounded by the NYPD after the Devil's Breath Crisis. However, Black Cat disappears as more Maggia operatives arrive in Sable APCs.

After defeating them, Spider-Man heads inside the vault. As he notices a briefcase inside that appears to have held a USB drive, Black Cat shuts the vault door behind him, revealing that she has taken Hammerhead's own drive and now has all five after having given Hammerhead four fakes. Before escaping, she admits that her "son" was just a lie to trick Spider-Man into helping her. Learning of Black Cat's deception, Hammerhead has his men rig her penthouse to explode. Despite Spider-Man's attempts to save her, she seemingly dies, as Hammerhead watches the explosion from a safe distance before leaving.

### Turf Wars

Days later, gang warfare in the city has been exacerbated by the Maggia families, who had united against Hammerhead's Maggia faction, now more armed with Sable Weaponry. These escalating gang warfare had even brought Spider-Man and police into the fight. Spider-Man, alongside Yuri Watanabe, discovers the location of one of Hammerhead's bases, with a great chance of Hammerhead himself being at the locale. Both infiltrate the location alongside a S.W.A.T team, with Spider-Man staying behind to distract Hammerhead's reinforcements. Unfortunately, Yuri and her team are caught off-guard by Hammerhead, who slaughters the entire team, with Yuri coming out as the sole survivor only thanks to Spider-Man's intervention. This leaves Yuri deeply traumatized, vowing revenge on Hammerhead.

Later, Spider-Man discovers that Hammerhead is planning to capture the other four Maggia dons to kill them while transmitting this to the whole city. He also discovers that Hammerhead is after something called "Project Olympus". To ensure that Hammerhead won't kidnap the Maggia leaders, Spider-Man starts working alongside the police to keep them safe, but Hammerhead still manages to abduct all of them, taking them to be cemented on a construction site. Spider-Man discovers this and goes there to save the leaders. He is able to save them, but encounters a physically enhanced Hammerhead, now wearing a powered Olympus armor suit that he stole from Sable International. Spider-Man ultimately defeats Hammerhead, but is interrupted by a vengeful Yuri, who proceeds to shoot Hammerhead dead.

In a post-credits scene, an emergency vehicle carries Hammerhead who is revived by one of his goons disguised as a paramedic.

### Silver Lining

Sometime after, Spider-Man and Mary Jane discover that not only is Hammerhead still alive and hiding, he is also looking for more Sable International technology and weapons to arm his mafia with Project: Olympus. This prompts the return of Silver Sable to New York to reclaim her stolen tech from Hammerhead. After working with Spider-Man to interrogate one of his men, Sable discovers that Hammerhead is planning to meet her at the top of the Colexco building in Midtown. Enraged, she flies with her jet to the location despite Spider-Man's warning that she could be in danger, but his efforts are in vain as Sable is caught in a trap orchestrated by Hammerhead.

After Spider-Man and Silver Sable fight together against Hammerhead's goons, Hammerhead himself appears, now completely transformed into a cyborg through his usage of Sable International's Project Olympus armor. He overpowers the two, and tries to kill Spider-Man by pushing him against the jet's engine. However, Black Cat appears and saves Spider-Man by grabbing him away from the scene. Together, Peter and Felicia reunite, with Felicia apologizing to him for her previous actions. Before she departs, she gives him one of the data drives from before to help defeat Hammerhead.

Spider-Man learns that Hammerhead has kidnapped Silver Sable and goes to save her, tracking her down the underground sewer. He eventually finds her being tortured by one of Hammerhead's men, and saves her. Using the data drive that Black Cat gave Spider-Man earlier, they discover that to defeat Hammerhead, they must melt down his steel forehead with massive heat. Together, Spider-Man and Silver Sable go to Sable International's secret New York base on the Hudson River where he helps her set a powerful laser on one of her jets. Hammerhead arrives, and Spider-Man fights him on the ground while Silver Sable uses the laser to break through the steel in his head. After a long fight, Sable manages to defeat Hammerhead by crashing her jet into him. She then says farewell to Spider-Man, who requests a ride back to Manhattan.

During the credits, a tribute to Stan Lee is shown. In a post-credits scene, Spider-Man trains Miles Morales who is wearing a Spider-Man mask, leading into *Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales*.

## Reception

Initial reviews for *The City That Never Sleeps* were mostly positive. Critics called "The Heist", the first piece of the three-part DLC saga, a "fantastic continuation" of the core game, praising its character work and story missions. However, critics noted that its gameplay, particularly the side objectives, felt "fun but repetitive", describing the DLC as "more of the same", but enjoying the story nonetheless despite its short length.

## References

1. ↑  See the Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales new gameplay demo. PlayStation Blog. Accessed September 16, 2020.
2. ↑ *Marvel's Spider-Man* series is coming to PC - *PlayStation Blog*
3. ↑  Spider-Man: The Heist Impressions – A Fantastic Continuation. Game Informer. Accessed October 25, 2018.
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1  Marvel's Spider-Man (PS4) - The Heist DLC Review. IGN. Accessed October 25, 2018.
5. ↑  Spider-Man’s Heist DLC Is Fun But Familiar. Kotaku. Accessed October 25, 2018.
6. ↑  Marvel's Spider-Man: The Heist Review. Push Square. Accessed October 25, 2018.