Back in 2018, Insomniac released Marvel’s Spider-Man. The hotly anticipated game was bundled with Playstation 4 consoles helping it to become the fastest-selling first-party video game release in Sony’s history.
And not only was the game popular, but it was also critically acclaimed with Shacknews and Verge naming it the game of the year. One essential character, though almost didn’t appear. Originally, game makers didn’t want to include Spider-Man’s doting Aunt May because her advanced age made her difficult to render.
Comic fans know that Peter Parker, Spider-Man’s alter ego, was orphaned as a young man. He was taken in by his Aunt May and Uncle Ben and Ben’s ultimate demise convinced the teenager to become a hero.
Dan Slott, a long-time writer of the character, was a writing consultant on the game. He recently told Games Radar, “They wanted Aunt May to just be a voice on the answering machine or over the phone. In a very early version, they didn’t want Aunt May to even be an NPC.”
The writer continued:
“They were telling me the reality of it; according to them, old characters – wrinkly characters – to make them look good and realistic, it takes a big amount of work. Equal to what they could use to create five other characters.”
At the end of the day, though, Slott was able to convince the creators that it was important to have Aunt May in the game. “Look, Marisa Tomei [who portrays Peter’s aunt in the latest films] isn’t that old. Aunt May doesn’t have to be super wrinkly; she can be less wrinkly.”
