Although multiverse crossovers have been common in Marvel comics for years now, when it comes to silver screenSpider-Manhas found some of the greatest success hopping dimensions.Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Versewon an Academy Award, and Tom Holland’s Spidey is set for a new multiverse adventure inSpider-Man: No Way Homewhich will see characters from Sam Raimi’s movies return.
Many fans of Sony’sSpider-Mangames are hoping that the series will also embrace the Spider-Verse likeSpider-Man: No Way Home. There are certainly some exciting possibilities like jumping between radically different art styles, different versions of the player character will different abilities, and more. However, if the games go all-in on the multiverse like theSpider-Manmovies have, there are reasons it could limit the type ofSpider-Manstories they can tell going forward.
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Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
One of the biggest challenges facing theMCUwhen it introduced its version of Peter Parker was fitting him into the world already built by the time Marvel acquired the rights to use the character. TheMCU’s Spider-Man grew up in a New York which had already been invaded by aliens and saved by theAvengers, where superheroes were already household names, and where the classic comic trope of the secret identity had been thrown out the window all the way back inIron Man 1.
Captain America: Civil Warchose to forgo Spider-Man’s origin story and early career entirely. Uncle Ben was already dead and Spider-Man was scouted by Tony Stark after he’d already established himself as a local New York superhero off-screen.
Tom Holland’s Spider-Man has only ever been in theMCUafter his character had already moved on from the “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” stage of his career. AlthoughSpider-Man: Homecomingmade some great choices that helped root Peter’s heroism in the everyday life of a high schooler, the firstMCUSpider-Man movie still saw him start out in Stark-made suits with an AI assistant instead of the simple suit of the Raimi movies. He may have lost his suit privileges later in the movie, but the difference in the character’s starting point remained stark.
The Spider-Man Universes
TheMCUmovies later saw Peter leave New York entirely and will now see him leave the very reality of theMCUto travel between dimensions. There’s the potential for some great moments, thereturn of Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblinand Alfred Molina’s Doctor Octopus for a start.
Ultimately, however, theMCUhas moved well beyond the point where it can tell smaller scaleSpider-Manstories about a homegrown hero. Peter’s role asTony Stark’s protégé leaves him without some of the comic book classics found in the Raimi movies. TheMCU’s Peter isn’t a photographer working for J. Jonah Jameson, and is about as unlikely to deliver a pizza to make ends meet as he is to spontaneously combust.
UnlessNo Way Homeends with Peter stranded in a dimension outside theMCU– which seems unlikely – the Marvel movies will never be able to return to the smaller-scopeSpider-Manstories that capture so much of what made the character beloved. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the multiverseSpider-Manstories, but each version of the character that ends up webslinging through multiple realities also goes past a point of no return when it comes to the kind of stories that can be told about them in the future without drastically reducing the stakes.
The SonySpider-Mangames have plenty of Easter eggs hinting at other heroes existing in that universe, like the Sanctum Sanctorum inhabited byDr. Strangeor the Avengers tower players can find in the game’s map of New York. These are just background details, however, and broadly the games remain the only mainstream version of the character whose stories are contextualized within anMCU-style world of superheroes, and who hasn’t been exposed to the multiverse.
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No Way Home
Unlike theMCU, Sony’sSpider-Manhas yet to go beyond that point of no return. There’s still the chance to tell stories about a struggling Peter Parker throwing on a homemade costume and fighting local villains.Tom Holland’s version of Peter Parker is great, but is also unlikely to be able to tell that kind of story again. Insomniac’s Peter Parker may already be out of high school by the time the first game takes place, but he stays far truer to the character’s humble origins.
Spider-Manstories may be far from grounded, but Sony’sSpider-Mangames offer one of the few mainstreamSpider-Manstories that call back to the relative realism of the older comics or the Raimi movies when compared to theMCU.Raimi’sSpider-Manstruggled to pay his rent, while theMCU’sSpider-Manreceived self-constructing nanotech Spider-Man suits from a billionaire. The scale of the story and Peter’s place in the world are completely different.
Not only that, but in the games Sony establishes that both Peter Parker and Miles Morales exist and are alive and well in one universe.Miles Moraleswas originally introduced in the comics after the death of one reality’s Peter Parker and would go on to meet an alternate universe Peter in a later story.
Similarly, the Miles ofInto the Spider-Versealso sees his universe’s Peter Parker killed. Sony has the best of both worlds – it can tell high school stories about Spider-Man through Miles, and it can tell stories about a slightly older Spider-Man through Peter, without killing off the original or introducing a multiverse element to the world.
It’s possible that a futureSpider-Mangame could feature some reality warping by a villain likeMysterio, but if Sony goes ahead with a full-on multiverseSpider-Mangame using the world from the first two games as a launching pad, it could struggle to go back. The nextMCUmovie’s title makes it clear – once the multiverse is opened, there’s no way home.
Spider-Man: No Way Homewill premiere in theaters on Jun 15, 2025.
