How accurate is the map in Marvel's Spider Man?

I've been interested in hearing about this too. Surprised no comparsion articles have come out.

Just judging by playing it. The city seems small when I'm swinging through as Spider-man. But, the swinging is still so good.

It's an idealized, much smaller version of New York, from what I can tell. It certainly feels like NY, regardless of how accurate it is.

Not enough scaffolding on literally every building, trash bags on the sidewalk, or homeless though. Also I don't get cursed at nearly often enough to be truly authentic

Nintendo World Store isn't in it, 0/10

not very, new york has a very strict grid system that seems to have been thrown out the window tbh

i'm not super fond of it for that reason

It's a much smaller version of Manhattan, though still pretty big in terms of video game cities.
Real Manhattan length Harlem to Battery Park: 13km
Game Manhattan length Harlem to Battery Park: 5km

They did a fantastic job of recreating most of Manhattan and its district's atmosphere and unique sights though. I don't think there was any video game before that did it better in that scope and detail. I love just playing tourist for hours. :)

This is based entirely on my own anecdotal, non-rigorous experience with the game, but if I had to put a number on it I'd say no more than 5% of buildings are accurately modeled. The rest are generic buildings meant to (understandably) create an interesting and varied environment to move around in. I'm really bad about estimating the scale of virtual environments, but it's clearly much smaller than the real city. The layout of landmarks is roughly correct but definitely not super accurate. It can be legitimately disorienting to find yourself looking at a faithfully reproduced building or monument, then turning around and being met with a completely different view down the street than the one you're used to.

Oh and WTC is all kinds of messed up. I could have sworn the Freedom Tower was in an E3 demo, but what they replaced it with in the final game looks bland as hell.

Um, it's not super accurate. The map is more of an abridged version of the city that does a good job at capturing its essence. There are notable things not where they should be, like 1 World Trade, which is right on the water in Spider-Man but a little in-land in real life. Clearly, they trimmed the blocks between the river and the building in-game.

The actual layout isn't incredibly accurate. Lots of made-up street names and condensed locations. If you watch the street signs, you'll notice yourself going from like 81st to 94th in two blocks.

It certainly feels like New York City, though. The scope of buildings is spot on. Most (but not all) of the landmarks are located around where they should be. Although real NYC has 1,000x more scaffolding and construction.

NoMoreTrolls said:

It's an idealized, much smaller version of New York, from what I can tell. It certainly feels like NY, regardless of how accurate it is.

Not enough scaffolding on literally every building, trash bags on the sidewalk, or homeless though. Also I don't get cursed at nearly often enough to be truly authentic

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How about jolly black men who appear from nowhere when it rains selling umbrellas? Best thing about NYC when I went last year :D Only $10 too!

It's always jarring seeing places you know represented in games and being like 'oh, this is actually a super compressed version of the thing that I know'

Assassin's Creed Syndicate was this for London, albeit transplanted back 150 years.

Even if though it's not strictly accurate, the scope of the height of random generic buildings seems to match reality. Its not being exaggerated.

As someone who knows New York a little (never lived there, but been 5 times as a tourist):

Stuff missing/wrong:
- No USS Intrepid. Boo! Would have been awesome to fight on the deck with all the cool places (Blackbird, F14 etc)
- In fact entire west side seems out - no piers for boat trips, sports grounds etc
- No South Street seaport or Ambrose boat nor tennis courts on lower South East side.
- I think the Metropolitan museum doesn't look right (only just shot past it)

Stuff I or others believe it does right:
- Empire state building
- Chrysler building
- Post office / Madison Square gardens
- Times square
- Brooklyn bridge
- Met Life building
Not checked yet - has anyone seen these...
- MOMA
- Ziegfield cinema
- Top of the rock / Rockerfeller centre
- 9/11 memorial fountains
- City hall
- New York Library / Bryant park
- Macy's

Damn - need to get back to it to check!

Reason for change: feedback from other posters. Some places confirmed.

Smaller for sure, I live a few miles outside of NYC so my family and I visit quite frequently. For example Bryant Park in-game is significantly smaller than in RL.

That being said they still did a fantastic job.

Living in New York I notice that some buildings are made way taller.
Also numbered streets sometime stop at some intersections, which basically never happens, to then have skipping numbers.

To give you an idea, I couldn't find the places I live and work in-game.
The area is there, the street isn't always there, the buildings look close to what you would find in that area.
However, I did find all the places I like to hang out in.

The largest stores are still somewhat present (the barnes and noble on Union Sq is actually a book store) but they changed the smaller places.

The lower east side is made much much smaller and the streets names are right but their positions are swapped.

The upper east side's building are way newer than they are in reality.
It's still incredibly accurate when it comes to the most well known areas (midtown, financial district, gardens, tourist attractions, museums).

Also I loved the attention to detail on how people are dressed differently depending on the area they're in.

Subway stops are pretty accurate as well.
They trimmed central park down too.
For some reason Madison Ave is replaced by York Ave (that should be next to the east river), although most streets and intersection are spot on, especially in the look and feel. It just feels like the actual place, although slightly improved.
Sport courts around the city are in the right places.
For some reason they changed the design of the Freedom Tower, and obviously ground zero is gone.
I love how they basically replaced Trump with Fisk around the city.

But still, overall I recognize places all the time, but everything is newer and nicer.

The Division was spot on, store by store even. This one is like a New York 50 years into the future, with streets interrupted by new, awesome buildings but with most of the old ones still there.

People saying is not accurate are just wrong, but it's not crazy like The Division. They get the feel of each block exactly right though.

Also, we don't have an Avenger's Tower yet.

Pal said:

I've never been to New York. Any newyorkers here can answer this question? Is the size of the map accurate compared to real life Manhattan? How about streets / tunnels / railroads / bridges? Are they accurate? Are all the buildings / towers positioned where they should? I'm not just talking about landmarks, but even your standard appartment / condo buildings.

I've been playing this game since last Friday and I've been in awe by the sheer size of the city. So many skyscrappers or even small/mid towers. If Spider Man was real, I'd envy his web swinging so much!

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It seems more accurate than a lot of games. It does actually condense blocks and they do skip out on streets. But on the other hand you can use a real map to find yourself around (or discover where they removed streets/blocks). I'm just sad they don't have some of my favorite landmarks I remember as a kid (the peace fountain and the Alice in wonderland statue in Central Park. And the largest thing I found they skipped and I was pretty surprised was the intrepid).

Overall I'd say it's the most accurate map of any game I've played.

Oldhand said:

As someone who knows New York a little (never lived there, but been 5 times as a tourist):
- No USS Intrepid. Boo! Would have been awesome to fight on the deck with all the cool places (Blackbird, F14 etc)
- In fact entire west side seems out - no piers for boat trips, sports grounds etc
- No South Street seaport or Ambrose boat nor tennis courts on lower South East side.
- I think the Metropolitan museum doesn't look right (only just shot past it), but natural history museum and Guggenheim are correct and in right place

Stuff I believe it does right:
- Empire state building
- Chrysler building
- Post office / Madison Square gardens
- Times square
- Brooklyn bridge
- Met Life building

Not checked yet - has anyone seen these...
- Radio city call
- MOMA
- Ziegfield cinema
- Top of the rock / Rockerfeller centre
- 9/11 memorial fountains
- Bull statue near wall street
- City hall
- South street seaport
- New York Library / Bryant park
- Macy's
- Flat iron building

Damn - need to get back to it to check!

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Radio City, Rockerfeller and Flat Iron are in from what I remember and the Bull in Wall Street is sort of there, but changed in a way I wont spoil but is more Marvel-centric.

The entire map would almost fit in the real central park.

It's not very accurate at all but it sure does feels like NY.

Is it better than GTA4 and the Division in terms of accuracy?

Hiraeth said:

Radio City, Rockerfeller and Flat Iron are in from what I remember and the Bull in Wall Street is sort of there, but changed in a way I wont spoil but is more Marvel-centric.

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Thanks!

Not accurate at all. I feel a bit let down.

The upper east side for example seems to be completely skyscrapers in this game, when they are very few and far between up there. But obviously they need skyscrapers for the swinging.

It does a good job in representing NYC, but it's a bit lackluster. My best friend lives in West Village, and Octo's office is right there. I jumped down to the streets, and found names I know really well. Grove, Perry, Christopher, Bleecker Except, there was an intersection of Horatio st and Perry St, two streets that are parallel IRL. I was so confused, running around The Village, because I found familiar names, and it's easy to recognize where the grid mismatches with The Village. But nothing added up. I plonked down on my closest approximation to the rooftop I've been at so many times before in real life, and the skyline felt right. Not just Empire etc, but the kind of tall apartment buildings around. It would be so easy to just make West Village feel more iconic. I got where I was, and the police station is in the right place, but there's just a lot of small unnamed streets for pedestrians only, and backalleys that don't exist. Narrower streets and more streets with traffic would've been perfect, and should be easy to do.

Of course it's smaller, but it's still strange to not just add a bit more consistency, given that they already have a great world map.

Keep in mind too they have to compensate for the number of fictional Marvel buildings that exist as well which makes me wonder if the Baxter Building is anywhere in the game.

I'd really love a game that's a 1:1 open world recreation of a city, or as close as is feasible given licencing issues. It'd probably be way, way worse for gameplay and traversal, but it'd be so organic.

Shadowrun said:

Um, it's not super accurate. The map is more of an abridged version of the city that does a good job at capturing its essence. There are notable things not where they should be, like 1 World Trade, which is right on the water in Spider-Man but a little in-land in real life. Clearly, they trimmed the blocks between the river and the building in-game.

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^ yeah. I'm feeling this too. The essence of the city is captured very well. But my own apartment building doesn't exist nor does the skyscraper next to it.

No big deal but as someone who lives in the city, it isn't picture perfect.

The real question is: How accurate is the map to Spider-Man 2?

nintendoman58 said:

The real question is: How accurate is the map to Spider-Man 2?

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Spider-Man 2 is like an abstract of NYC.

I can confirm - Avengers tower is indeed on 83rd and Park Ave.

Obviously it's not 1:1, but I think the biggest issue is the fact that in some cases they weren't able to get the licenses to use the real buildings, so quite a few of New York's landmarks have been replaced by look-alikes.

Most noticeable is One World Trade Center, which doesn't really look anything like the real building, along with the 9/11 memorial which doesn't exist at all (though that's probably a bit more understandable considering the type of game this is). Bit of a shame considering how iconic the building is, the fact that it's been replaced by a stand-in sticks out so much. And the buildings they did get the licenses to use are extremely accurate as well which makes it even worse.

Weirdly enough it seams like they actually had the license even up to last E3 a few months ago:



Also noticed that while the High Line exists in the game, it doesn't really look much like the actual High Line, so that's probably a license issue as well. Funny enough they're still constructing it in-game (not just the Huston Yards section) despite the fact that most of it was completed years ago.

The annoying thing is, this isn't in anyway their fault. If the landlords of a building don't want it to appear in a piece of media or a video game, there's nothing Insomniac can do except for making a stand-in that looks different enough that it could no longer be considered a recreation, no matter how noticeable that building is.

Akinsa said:

Obviously it's not 1:1, but I think the biggest issue is the fact that in for some of the buildings they weren't able to get the licenses to use the real buildings, so quite a few of New York's landmarks have been replaced by look-alikes.

Most noticeable is One World Trade Center, which doesn't really look anything like the real building, along with the 9/11 memorial which doesn't exist at all (though that's probably a bit more understandable considering the type of game this is). Bit of a shame considering how iconic the building is, the fact that it's been replaced by a stand-in sticks out so much. And the buildings they did get the licenses to use are extremely accurate as well, which makes it even worse.

Weirdly enough it seams like they actually had the license even up to last E3 a few months ago:

Also noticed that while the High Line exists in the game, it doesn't really look much like the actual High Line, so that's probably a license issue as well. Funny enough they're still constructing it in-game (not just the Huston Yards section) despite the fact that most of it was completed years ago.

The annoying thing is, this isn't in anyway their fault. If the landlords of a building don't want it to appear in a piece of media or a video game, there's nothing Insomniac can do except for making a stand-in that looks different enough that it could no longer be considered a recreation, no matter how noticeable that building is.

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Who owns the licence for those?

Francesco said:

Who owns the licence for those?

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The building owners, I would assume. It is private property at the end of the day, and I don't think recreating a building within a video game has the same protections or fair use that simply taking a photo or video of the building does.

The fact that they actually managed to get the licenses to use many of the buildings in the first place is pretty impressive considering how much of a legal nightmare it must have been.

Akinsa said:

The building owners, I would assume. It is private property at the end of the day, and I don't think recreating a building within a video game has the same protections or fair use that simply taking a photo or video of the building does.

The fact that they actually managed to get the licenses to use many of the buildings in the first place is pretty impressive considering how much of a legal nightmare it must have been.

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It's so strange to think that digitally recreating NYC, especially when it's just the backdrop of a game, requires licenses. You'd think you should be able to represent the city the way it is. I mean, I get it, but it's just strange.

Septimius said:

It's so strange to think that digitally recreating NYC, especially when it's just the backdrop of a game, requires licenses. You'd think you should be able to represent the city the way it is. I mean, I get it, but it's just strange.

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It's the case pretty much everywhere unfortunately. In most countries at least there's usually an exception for directly filming or photographing the buildings, so (I'm pretty sure?) the average live action film doesn't have to go though massive legal trouble trying to film a scene on a street, but that doesn't really apply to games where the environment has to be modelled from the ground up.

(Although I wonder whether 3D scanning would get around that?)

It's definitely a shrunk down version. But it's cool seeing landmarks we've visited often, in the game.

If this were a PC game I'd want a mod that would add the various stores and chains. Because of licensing it's a good thing they're absent, because we've seen how that goes.

Well, French outlet of the HuffPost shared this comparison video which was quite impressive to say the least :

Olaf said:

The entire map would almost fit in the real central park.

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No, it is more than double the size of the actual Central Park. Real Central Park is about 4km long and 0,8km wide, game Manhattan is about 5,3km long and 1,9km wide.

Game Manhattan is significantly smaller than real Manhattan, yes, but let's not downplay how big the city still is. Most importantly, it also feels big in the game, other than many other game cities that feel unrealistically small.

Kalte said:

Well, French outlet of the HuffPost shared this comparison video which was quite impressive to say the least :

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It gets way deeper than that: subway stops, stores and restaurants are mostly right when they're near famous locations.

Kalte said:

Well, French outlet of the HuffPost shared this comparison video which was quite impressive to say the least :

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Hope they have those terrapins in the lakes in Central Park :D

I was in Manhattan in March, and spent a lot of time walking around and I really enjoyed finding landmarks I recognized. I even found The High Line walking path which was really cool to me. IT's definitely a condensed version, but it's captured the feel really well. Loving my time with the game so far.

snausages said:

It's always jarring seeing places you know represented in games and being like 'oh, this is actually a super compressed version of the thing that I know'

Assassin's Creed Syndicate was this for London, albeit transplanted back 150 years.

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Hey I used a real life map to see where the Prime Ministers actual house was and it was spot on. IIRC it was really accurate to the 1800's maps. There was a few errors and condensed things though.

http://m.ign.com/videos/2015/09/28/assassins-creed-syndicate-real-life-vs-in-game-london

Kalte said:

Well, French outlet of the HuffPost shared this comparison video which was quite impressive to say the least :

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Good video.

c043y said:

I was in Manhattan in March, and spent a lot of time walking around and I really enjoyed finding landmarks I recognized. I even found The High Line walking path which was really cool to me. IT's definitely a condensed version, but it's captured the feel really well. Loving my time with the game so far.

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Agreed, though I went last year.

c043y said:

I was in Manhattan in March, and spent a lot of time walking around and I really enjoyed finding landmarks I recognized. I even found The High Line walking path which was really cool to me. IT's definitely a condensed version, but it's captured the feel really well. Loving my time with the game so far.

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The High Line is great. That area is really nice - forgot the name of the converted mill (?) which has loads of craft shops, but it was gorgeous.
Oh and the sign warning people of topless sunbathers on the High Line.... lol are laws different there?

One of these days I wonder if one studio will make a 1:1 New York (or wherever) and brand it to sell to other studios to use in their games that take place there.

The setting would be advertised the same way Unreal Engines are. "This game takes place in RealYork 4" or somesuch.

From the custom markers it looks like manhattan is only 3 miles long while the real thing is like 12 miles. So its cut very short.

Haven't played the game yet, but I do live here in NYC. It looks like it has the vibe right but definitely not really that close to accurate, if that makes sense.

For example the amount of Manhattan that exists above central park has basically been cut in half if not down to a third of its size, judging by the map. That part of the city is generally less well known, so it makes sense that it's seldom recreated in games, but it definitely looks like it's missing.

Well, I was able to show my girlfriend Madison Square Park in the game where I purposed to her in real life last December. She was suitably impressed.

snausages said:

Assassin's Creed Syndicate was this for London, albeit transplanted back 150 years.

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HOW OLD ARE YOU

mute said:

One of these days I wonder if one studio will make a 1:1 New York (or wherever) and brand it to sell to other studios to use in their games that take place there.

The setting would be advertised the same way Unreal Engines are. "This game takes place in RealYork 4" or somesuch.

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What an idea

Yossarian said:

HOW OLD ARE YOU

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