The creative director of Spider-Man: Miles Morales has said that Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse “inspired us tremendously.”
As part of a three-part video series orchestrated by Sony (opens in new tab), the teams behind Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and the Miles Morales: Spider-Man comics have come together to discuss their different takes on the Marvel character and what they each took from each other to bring him to life in a different medium.
Taking turns to discuss how each team constructed Miles Morales’ world, Brian Horton – creative director of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales – shared how Into the Spider-Verse inspired the team at Insomniac “tremendously.”
“When we saw [Into the Spider-Verse], we had already developed a bit of story for what our game would be,” Horton explains, “but we were heartened and freaked out by how good of a story you guys told with Miles” the director tells Into the Spider-Verse writers/producers Phil Lord and Chris Miller as well as the film’s director Peter Ramsey.
“All the small details that you bought into his character really helped us raise our game,” Horton shares. Phil Lord responded to this statement by revealing that “[Insomniac] were kind enough to invite us over to their place and show us some of what they were working on and we were really blown away with their observation and the details that they found in their Harlem location.”
Discussing the location for Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Horton talks about how important it was to the team to represent Miles’ neighborhood accurately. “When we put out our demo where we see Miles walking through his neighborhood, and the representation of Puerto Rico is imbued on the streets,” Horton explains, “all of that was the team coming together with this very specific goal to ensure that the world that Miles Morales was living in, felt real.”
This sentiment was echoed by senior animator on the game James Ham who explains that the team at Insomniac did so much research when developing the game. Even down to the smaller details like what Puerto Rican dishes to serve during the Ganke and Phin dinner scene, Ham explains: “To have that feel like you’ve been there before, you can smell the food through the game – I know they did so much research on getting that stuff right.”
Want to see more of Insomniac’s Miles Morales? Find out everything you need to know about his next video game appearance with our Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 guide.