Spider-Noir, from its first mainstream appearance in the animated Spider-Man movies, immediately became one of my favorite iterations of the famous crime-fighting mutant. The 2.5D art style, where the character kept his recognizable quirks as a black-and-white noir detective, gave him such a strong presence on the screen, and he stuck out as one of the most unique takes on Spider-Man in general.
Not long after, it was confirmed that Spider-Noir is getting his own TV series. While shot in color, the series had an optional black-and-white mode you could watch it in, which, by all accounts, seems to have been the intended viewing experience. Those who did not want to watch it as such could turn the colors back on, but I always found that as defeating the purpose and nature of the character himself.
Naturally, the character was further propped up by the incredible Nicolas Cage, who gave it his all to portray this strange persona as a self-absorbed, introspective, brooding 1920s New York detective. And it actually worked pretty well, I’d say.
The series got mid-to-high sevens overall, and critics showered it with rave reviews, earning it a 90-something percentage on Rotten Tomatoes. But that seems not to have been enough for suited-up executives, who have officially decided to can the series altogether. The one season that was made is actually fairly complete, and so it can very well work as a one-off. But it would have still been interesting to see more of it, perhaps with more iteration and innovation on the style and the black-and-white approach.
But that doesn’t mean it’ll be gone forever.
With how much of an influx comics and movies have had in gaming lately, I wouldn’t put it past any Hollywood or business executive to decide that, yeah, maybe this Spider-Noir could get another shot within a different medium. It sure as hell worked in comics, and it did fairly well as part of a larger cast in the animated movies, so why not games? This is, of course, wishful thinking, but we’ve got some examples to back it up.
Naturally, Insomniac’s Marvel games have all done pretty well, all things considered. They largely received positive reviews from both critics and players and have proven, on several occasions, that there is a strong market for such experiences. Games like Mouse: P.I. For Hire also showed us that Disney-animated, black-and-white 1930s-style games can work quite well and be genuinely popular with a broad audience of players.
If developers looked at both and used some of their own creativity to take a spin on these concepts, I’d be surprised if they didn’t come up with a cool detective-noir game that is black-and-white by default. It would be gloomy and introspective and philosophical and possibly a slow burner, with action sprinkled in to break the pace a little.
Conceptually, that reminds me of such great games as The Wolf Among Us and a long-forgotten title called Murdered: Soul Suspect, which you should definitely play if you haven’t in the last 12 years or so. There is a lot in the gaming world that could be taken, combined, and retrofitted to suit Spider-Noir as a character and as a concept, and I would genuinely be ecstatic to play such a game.
A man can dream. This has high odds of never happening, ever, but maybe if there is enough talk and chatter about it, then perhaps someone’s mind can be made up to follow this idea. Who knows.
