Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps DLC (PS4) Review

 Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps DLC (PS4) 8/10

[THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!]

Spider-Man: The City That Never Sleeps DLC was released during the last couple of months of 2018, with the DLC having three chapters and serves as an epilogue to the main story. As a closing out story which will lead to Miles’ own game and, in turn, Spider-Man 2, this DLC is pretty good. I’m gonna try and keep this short, so let’s begin.

After the events of the main story, The City That Never Sleeps (CTNS) is a three chapter DLC add-on that continues Spider-Man's story after the Devil's Breath incident. In the first chapter "The Heist", Spider-Man will track down a series of heists that points to the return of Black Cat. After tracking her down, he learns that she's helping Hammerhead steal important data drives from the other Maggia family dons so that her son stays safe from their clutches. In a surprising twist, it turns out that she doesn't have a son and she was doing this all for the thrill of a good heist. Realizing that she's a loose end, Hammerhead tries to kill her in an apartment explosion.

In the second chapter "Turf Wars", after successfully getting the drives from Black Cat, Hammerhead moves in to cleanse the mob and redeem its status in the city. Hammerhead feels that ever since Spider-Man came around that the mob has turned into a pushover entity that no one respects and he aims to change that. Leading a city wide gang war against the other Maggia families, Spider-Man has to stop him before it gets worse. Along the way, Spider-Man learns that when Sable International left New York, they left a lot of their equipment there and Hammerhead is using said equipment to arm up his men with the best technology. Spider-Man also learns about a secret project that Sable was producing called Project Olympus, a super soldier project. Hammerhead plans to use Project Olympus to upgrade himself into a cyborg transhumanist and become unstoppable. After Spider-Man saves the remaining dons from public execution, Spider-Man faces off with Hammerhead to try to stop him from getting stronger. After the fight, Yuri Watanabe breaks the police code and confronts Hammerhead and kills him. Yuri is then forced into administrative leave and Hammerhead then gets revived by one of his goons.

Chapter 3 of the DLC "Silver Lining" follows Spider-Man and Silver Sable as they track down Hammerhead and the rest of Sable's equipment. Along the way, they learn that Hammerhead had gone ahead with Project Olympus and is now an unstoppable cyborg. Spider-Man and Silver Sable form an unlikely alliance to stop the mad titan from taking over the city.

Gotta say this story was actually pretty great. It's not as big or deep as the main story, but it's the perfect bridge for a sequel to the main story. I loved the introduction of Black Cat and having Hammerhead be the main villain for these chapters was awesome. And of course Silver Sable got some much needed character development. These DLC chapters help flush out the world of Spider-Man and I can't wait for the second game to come out and continue this.

With DLC also comes new content. Not only do we get an extension of the main story, but there's more side content to take care of. The first thing is Screwball. Screwball is an internet social media fanatic that'll do anything for likes and follows. Due to her massive internet following, she has a lot of fans in New York and a good majority of these fans are escaped inmates. She'll put innocents in danger for the sake of her internet show and it's your job to play along and rescue everybody. Screwball appears in all three DLC chapters and basically takes Taskmaster's place with her challenges. She has a slew of challenges (combat, specific gadget combat, bomb threats, stealth missions etc). What makes these different are the Photobombs. Photobombs are special prompts that you have to do to score extra points. Knocking out someone in a specific area or performing tricks while you're swinging in the air are the main things you do with Photobombs. If you do these, then you'll have to press a button as a meter fills up. Hit it at the right spot and you'll maximize your points. I actually really enjoyed the implementation of these as they force you to fight/swing in a certain way instead of the same boring challenges that you had to do for Taskmaster.

There's also art hunting, crime investigation, and more bases to complete with each DLC chapter. The bases are no joke. Due to the upgrades that your enemies get, these bases got a lot harder than the normal ones you did in the main story. If you screw up your combo one time or perform the wrong action (dodging at the wrong time or focusing on the wrong enemy) you will fail. You'll have to break these hordes down to a science if you want to win.

Everything else about the game is the same. Same graphics, same music, same combat system, and same attention to detail. But hey, if it ain't broke, don't try to fix it.

I will say that despite the decent amount of content here, I wish there was more to do here. The story is fine, but I'm talking about more side content. Throw in another side villain like Screwball to help keep things fresh.

Overall, this is a great add-on to a great game and I can't wait for what Insomniac Games is going to do next with the franchise. With each chapter being roughly 2-3 hours long each, you'll stay occupied for a short while. If you enjoyed Spider-Man and everything the main game has to offer, you'll not be disappointed with this DLC. If you got the cash then go treat yourself to this.

Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time.

This is Zorgak, signing off.