Game Informer is dusting off Ultimate Spider-Man — the 2005 Treyarch-developed action game — for a new Replay stream, timed to coincide with Spider-Man: Brand New Day hitting theaters this week. Editors Marcus Stewart and Kyle Hilliard are hosting the session live on Twitch and YouTube starting at 12 p.m. CT / 3 p.m. ET.
Ultimate Spider-Man launched in 2005 for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and GameCube, plus handheld platforms. It was the first game adaptation of Marvel's Ultimate comic line, which itself debuted in 2000 as a modernized reboot of the Marvel universe. Writer Brian Michael Bendis — who penned the acclaimed Ultimate Spider-Man comic run — served as director on the game, giving it an unusually direct creative link to its source material. The game used cel-shading to replicate the comic's art style and carried over the fluid web-swinging mechanics introduced in Spider-Man 2 (2004). Story-wise, it picks up months after the comic's Venom saga, and players swap between Spider-Man and Venom, each with distinct abilities and dedicated gameplay sections.
Ultimate Spider-Man sits in an interesting spot in the Spidey game catalog — well-regarded at the time but largely overshadowed by the Insomniac era that dominates the conversation today. Treyarch had previously handled Spider-Man: The Movie and its sequel before moving on to the Call of Duty series, making Ultimate Spider-Man one of their last major superhero projects. The Ultimate Marvel line itself ran until 2015's Secret Wars event, with Bendis's Spider-Man run widely considered one of the best long-form superhero comics of the 2000s.
The stream is a good excuse to revisit a game that doesn't come up much anymore, especially with Spider-Man back in the cultural spotlight thanks to the new film.
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