Over the last few years, Sony has angled its custody of the Spider-Man license increasingly towards the concept of the multiverse. Between the incredible Into the Spider Verse and the persistent rumors that the Venom movie franchise is heading in a similar direction, Spidey fans have learned to embrace unexpected cross-dimension cameos. Now with Spider-Man: No Way Home, Marvel as a wider entity is also getting ready to swing this entire concept to even greater heights.
Of all the legs of the media empire, Insomniac Games' wildly popular Marvel's Spider-Man franchise is starting to feel like the odd one out when it comes to multiversal adventures. To date, the studio has passionately established a somewhat grounded and traditional humanized take on Peter Parker, with the hero's only brush with interdimensional portals having occurred away from players' hands in a cross-promotional comic book spin-off. However, one big unmissable clue at the end of the recent No Way Home trailer suggests that could all be about to change sooner than anyone expected.
No Way Home's PS5 Advert
After wowing Spider-Man fans consistently throughout the No Way Home trailer with explosive character revelations, Sony ended the trailer on a curious note. Instead of a traditional quippy or dramatic closing stinger scene, a tool used increasingly in movie marketing, the Marvel Cinematic Universe blockbuster's debut simply ended unceremoniously on an advert. Featuring the full line up of currently released DualSense PS5 controllers, this anti-climactic ending left a lot of fans understandably confused.
While entirely speculative, this literal cold ending could be a potential tease towards a movie crossover featuring Insomniac Games' interpretation of Spider-Man. Even though Sony has historically stuffed similar PS5 themed adverts into all manner of places, as recently as July's Ghostbusters: Afterlife trailer, this instance seems decidedly more deliberate. For starters the colors of the controllers themselves invoke Spidey's own in a very intentional manner, with the corporation also having used cross-promotional marketing like this famously with the PS3's original font and logo in the past.
One of the first things that fans will naturally think about when they see the controller ad is Insomniac's take on the Spider-Man character. Having gained wide-spread praise for Marvel's Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the connotations the image may be inferring are almost unavoidable and therefore seem all the more intentional. All of the groundwork has also already been done within both Spider-Man franchises that would make the crossover and cameo appearance of the Yuri Lowenthal voiced Spider-Man theoretically rather simple.
The F.E.A.S.T. Spider-Man Connection
Considering the Spider-Man: No Way Home trailer was packed to the brim with references and story beats from across the character's entire history, it's perhaps unsurprising that there was another potential Insomniac-themed reference hidden away as well. In a blink and it's gone moment, Peter can be seen running through a homeless shelter in his newly revealed magic infused black and gold suit. What's striking about this brief scene is the fact that this locale is clearly one of New York's F.E.A.S.T. facilities.
While Peter has been known to volunteer for the fictional charitable organization in several adaptations of the Spider-Man mythos, it's fair to say that Insomniac Games' version is the incarnation that popularized and utilized the setting to its most extensive. Across Marvel's Spider-Man and Miles Morales, F.E.A.S.T. has featured as an almost constant aspect of the universe. With Doctor Strange's spell seemingly having broken reality and allowed the multiverse to flood into the MCU, it's not too much of a stretch to envision that Tom Holland's character could theoretically be running through the same location, in a brief cameo style appearance.
Spidey's PS5 Face Remodel
Back in late 2020, during the run up to Marvel's Spider-Man Miles Morales' release, Insomniac garnered some confusion and dismay from its fanbase with the announcement that it had recast Peter Parker's face model. At the time the decision was justified by the studio for the completely plausible reason that the new actor, Ben Jordan, better matched Spidey's voice actor Yuri Lowenthal from a mocap and animation perspective. Since then the decision has gained further backlash with some fans claiming that the re-design's youthful appearance in-game now too closely mirrors Tom Holland's big Hollywood depiction.
In light of the multiverse potential of Spider-Man: No Way Home and the loose allusions to the aforementioned PlayStation series, there could potentially be more to that point than anyone initially realized. When it comes to speculation, it might be wild and highly unlikely, but there's a chance that the recasting could have occurred to better facilitate a cameo movie crossover appearance from the video game incarnation of Spider-Man.
While it's true that the MCU blockbuster appears to be pulling in villains in to the main Marvel universe, it doesn't seem too implausible to imagine that the physics involved could work in reverse too. Within that scenario it's also not much of a stretch beyond that point to imagine Tom Holland running past his game counterpart, whilst drawing in funny and awkward comparisons between the two from onlookers as well.
Marvel's Spider-Man is available now on PS4 and PS5.
