Spider-Man: Miles Morales Is a Standalone Game, Not a Remaster [UPDATED]

Update 11:50 a.m. ET: Despite the description provided by Simon Rutter to The Telegraph about Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales being “an expansion,” Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier states this is not the case. Instead, he describes the game as “brand new” and similar to Uncharted: The Lost Legacy in scope. Insomniac Games confirms this is a “standalone game.”

NEWS: Spider-Man Miles Morales is *not* an expansion or enhancement or remaster, despite a Sony executive's comments this morning, a source tells Bloomberg News. Nor is it Spider-Man 2. It is a brand-new, standalone game similar in scope to Uncharted Lost Legacy.

— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) June 12, 2020

The original article follows:

Despite being a headline project of Sony’s PlayStation 5 reveal event yesterday, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales will not be a full-fledged new game. Instead, it will be an expansion embedded within a next-gen update to 2018’s original Marvel’s Spider-Man.

The revelation comes courtesy of an interview between The Telegraph and PlayStation’s Head of European Business Operations, Simon Rutter (via VGC). In Rutter’s words, the content is “akin to an expansion bolted on to an upgraded version of the original title.”

Rutter described the Miles Morales content as “substantial” but provided no information as to exactly what players might be able to expect. Similarly, he noted that the base game itself will be subject to “major enhancements […] obviously deploying some of the major PlayStation 5 technology and features.” Those upgrades went unexplained. However, Marvel’s Spider-Man has previously been demonstrated as an example of the benefits of the PlayStation 5’s SSD in minimizing loading times, while the DualSense controller is almost certain to be another area of focus.

Speaking further about the presence of first-party, cross-generation games, Rutter said, “I think what is very interesting for everyone to see is how familiar games might be to some degree changed through the workings of PlayStation 5.”

While the lack of a sequel may be disappointing, expansions have enabled developers to embrace a high level of experimentation in recent years. Whether the Miles Morales expansion will release as standalone content or only be available within the remastered game is unclear at present. In either case, the project is slated to arrive during the holiday season this year, possibly alongside the new console’s launch.