To the excitement of the PlayStation faithful, but to the ire of those who plan to play on other platforms, Spider-Man was announced to be coming as a playable character in the upcoming Marvel’s Avengers via a free update, with the caveat being that this is only for those who play on either PlayStation 4 or 5. Scot Amos from Crystal Dynamics in an interview with IGN Japan explained how this came to be, going on to add that this is the only character that will be locked to one console:

“(The inclusion of) Spider-Man is a unique opportunity for us because of the relationship that PlayStation and Marvel have…That is the only character that we are doing that way,” confirming that no other characters are planned to become platform exclusives.”

With Spider-Man only available on the PlayStation family of systems, it’s left many to wonder what the future holds for Marvel’s Avengers cross-play future. After all, this is in the life service genre, and it would be in their best interest to implement this for maximum audience engagement. Right now, there are no plays to allow the four versions of Marvel’s Avengers to talk to one another, however this could change in the future:

For cross-play, we have no announcements at the moment…But the beauty of this game is that we’re going to be adding on to it for years, so it’s one of those things that we have our eye on for what the future could be.”

For those who pre-ordered and were able to sign up, Marvel’s Avengers will have a beta this weekend on PlayStation 4 with other platforms rolling out during the month of august.

Marvel’s Avengers launches officially September 4th on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Google Stadia and PC. Next generation versions will follow.

VIA IGN