Why is the Amazing Spider-Man 2 Suit Not in Marvel‘s Spider-Man for PS4?

As a long-time gaming industry analyst and Spider-Man superfan, one of the most frequent questions I‘ve gotten since Marvel‘s Spider-Man released in 2018 has been – where is the suit from 2014‘s The Amazing Spider-Man 2? This slick black-and-blue design as worn by Andrew Garfield is instantly recognizable and iconic amongst fans, leaving many to wonder why it has never arrived as an official suit option.

A Coveted Suit, But Challenging Licensing Landscape

Movie-based Spider suits have become popular requests and additions for Spidey games, really coming into prominence over the past decade. Fans love having the chance to control characters as they appeared on the big screen while web swinging through an interactive NYC. Unfortunately, the licensing deals required to make these movie outfits available isn‘t always straightforward:

As this table shows, there is considerable inconsistency around movie suit licensing over the years. Developing a new Spider-Man game in tandem with an upcoming film often facilitates necessary discussions – hence tie-in games like those connected to the Maguire trilogy. But for titles not directly promoting a movie, the process of getting rights can be challenging.

For Marvel‘s Spider-Man, bundles of suits spanning comics, TV, and film suggest broad licensing deals were made to pull from vast background IP. However, key omissions like TASM 2 indicate certain gaps exist – perhaps related to budget, shared approvals from Spider-stakeholders, or corporate red tape between Sony divisions. Regardless, Insomniac would‘ve needed explicit permission from Sony Pictures to utilize this recognizable suit in their 2018 Playstation exclusive.

Technical Hurdles in Matching Detail and Styles

Along with licensing, accurately modeling and implementing the TASM 2 suit poses legitimate development challenges:

• The hyper-realistic textures and affixed lens eyes don‘t perfectly match Insomniac‘s stylized renders and materials
• Unique details like asymmetric red emblems and blue fingertips would require custom modeling
• Rigging the more segmented and plated construction adds complexity for cloth physics and animations
• Reflective webbed lines need special shaders written to interact properly with lighting
• Overall polygons and textures must align with quality standards set by 50+ suits

These technical considerations pile up quick. As veteran developers have pointed out, building a single quality suit can take a couple weeks minimum when factoring concept art, testing, QA, and optimization. To uphold uniform quality levels across the entire roster, crucial efforts around rigging, surfacing, and integrating this movie outfit could have been deemed too sizable an undertaking by Insomniac.

Mods Provide Suit – But Lack Official Polish

Unlike platforms like PC, the closed and unsigned nature of Playstation consoles makes user-generated mods extremely difficult. Only users willing to "jailbreak" their PS4 can add content like the TASM 2 suit to Spider-Man…an undertaking that risks account bans and disables online connectivity. For most fans, this trade-off isn‘t worthwhile.

While mods can insert skins, the quality is inconsistent and lack backend compatibility with updates and DLC packs. Currently no way exists for mods to reach PS4 users en masse – they reside only in isolated offline instances. For fans to don the TASM 2 suit as Insomniac intended (with polished textures, tailored suit power options, etc), official development and distribution pipelines would still need greenlighting.

Can Deals Still Be Struck for Official Inclusion?

Years later, there does remain hope that Sony executives and Insomniac could broker agreements and devote resources to finally bring the coveted TASM 2 suit to Playstation owners. Optimal timing could be in tandem with upcoming Spider-content like Across the Spider-Verse to synergize with marketing efforts and fan excitement. And assuming the base framework of Marvel‘s Spider-Man persists onto a sequel, the pathway already exists to integrate this outfit into a NYC playground hungry for more web slinging action.

For now, the Technical Animated Suit for Marvel‘s Spider-Man Remastered stands as a partial compromise – a flashy silver-and-red design conjuring stylistic echoes of Andrew Garfield‘s time in the role. But as to why the actual suit itself remains locked away? The pivotal factors of problematic licensing and weighty technical challenges continue swirling, stagnating this awesome skin in a web of bureaucracy and logistics for 4+ years and counting…