This week, Insomniac Games released the first of three DLC packages planned for their smash hit Spider-Man game. The suite is called The City That Never Sleeps. This first entry, The Heist, delivers a short, but fun story, some perfectly adequate side content, and some sweet new suits as well.
The Story
The story went a lot further than I expected, let me start with that. Several characters from the main story pop in that give the DLC a feeling of Spider-Man 1.5. This doesn’t read as a sequel, but really feels like a new episode that picks up where we left off, while hinting to the future. Black Cat is a really fun character, and the surprising sexual tension between her and Peter was just a delight to be a part of. It’s honestly surprising how quickly she feels welcome, despite a relatively short time on screen.
There are certain plot moments in this genre that do not feel meaningful, because there are so rarely consequences in these types of stories. Because of that, the ending of The Heist may feel a little underwhelming. Despite that, it really leaves a desire for more, more of these incredibly written characters, brought to life by amazing talent.
Side Activities
The side content in The Heist is completely fine. A new collectible is introduced in the form of stolen art. There are only ten of them and they are very easy to locate. The story surrounding the art really delivers and elevates this simple fetch into something fun. There’s also a new set of challenges, rewarding the ever elusive challenge token currency, that should help players finish off upgrading some of their gadgets. The new challenges are an improvement over Taskmaster’s base game activity and introduce gadget challenges. There are only a handful of these, but the conclusion points the way towards seeing more in future DLC, which I hope is the case.
There are also some new street crimes from the new mafia faction. Not every district has these crimes, and they only take a couple minutes to complete each one. None of the side activities really shine, but they pad out the DLC in a way that actually adds to the experience, with some minor improvements that keep the content from feeling hacked together.
The Game-play
Not a ton of new game-play to speak of. There are some elements to the new challenges that aren’t present in any shape in the base game. Some of the random crimes require defusing explosives with the spider-drone. While we haven’t done this exact activity before, the spider-drone does not play any differently. The DLC takes place on a different map from the base game, which means that base-game side activities cannot be accessed while completing The Heist, and the time is fixed to night. The time-fixing makes sense, this DLC is supposed to take place over the course of a few hours, which is how long this takes to complete.
There is some slightly new game-play that is incredibly exciting. The Heist features very short team-up sections that feel like a watered-down version of the mechanics in Arkham Knight. There is only one combat section, in which Black Cat assists in very minor ways, and a stealth section where her take-downs can be triggered manually. This mechanic is introduced and hardly used, but it opens up a lot of exciting possibilities for future DLC, and for a sequel. Arkham Knight‘s team-up game-play is one of the funnest parts of that game. Bringing the dynamic duo together felt amazing. This mechanic hasn’t really been used anywhere else, and it’s great to see it picked up in a game that could really benefit from its use.
Suits
The Heist introduces three new suits, two of which are unlocked by story progression, and one unlocked by completing the side content. The first unlock-able suit, is the Resilient Suit. This is an original design, and is yet another armored suit variant. It’s kind of cool, I’m not a fan of the armored suits, but the white spider and toned down color scheme looks good. The Spider-UK suit is very cool. The overwhelming ratio of blue in this suit creates a very sleek look, and the glove design is a favorite, reminiscent of Andrew Garfield’s Spider-Man. The final suit is my favorite of the three. The Scarlet Spider II Suit is mostly red, with a black cowl and black fingers. This suit looks great at night, and looks incredible during cut-scenes.
Recommendation
Overall, The Heist is a solid DLC, and a promising start to The City That Never Sleeps DLC suite. The bar for post-launch content had been set pretty high over the years, but for the price-point, Insomniac Games has delivered something well worth your time and money. Plus, the short, but satisfying nature of the content ensures that players can crank this out quickly, and be ready for what ever fall game is up next on the roster. Handsome Phantom recommends.
If you haven’t, be sure to check out the Platted That! for Spider-Man, or our trip to D.C. to check out Mario Kart VR.
