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Spider-Man 2's Sandman Fight Was Hard To Get Right Because Spidey Is Too Fast
18.03.2024 - 19:13 / thegamer.com
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 developers have taken to the stage at GDC, shedding some light on their work. This includes an interesting tidbit about the development of the Sandman boss, and how challenging it was to balance the fight in the villain's favour.
This discussion comes from a talk about the animation work that went into Marvel's Spider-Man 2, attended by TheGamer's Eric Switzer. Specifically discussing the Sandman fight, associate animation director at Insomniac, Stephen Camardella, says that Spider-Man is just too fast for the sluggish Sandman to pose any real threat, something they had to address in their animation work. Otherwise, he feared that Spidey would "swing circles around" Sandman.
To mitigate this, the team implemented something called "focus tracking". Basically, this means that Sandman will readjust and re-aim his attacks mid-blow to better target a player who's constantly swinging around. However, if the player does a dodge, then the focus tracking is briefly switched off, essentially meaning that he loses track of you for a moment. It then turns back on just before the attack lands, so to the player, it looks like a near-miss.
This is a clever trick which, in the thick of the fight, players wouldn't be able to notice. It also sounds like a better compromise than having Sandman's speed cranked up 100 percent, as the game instead features the kind of attacks that we'd expect from the huge boss fight.
At the very least, it sounds like the developers had plenty of time to work on the fight. The panel - which included fellow associate animation directors, Lindsay Thompson and Bradley McLaughlin, as well as senior animation director Robert Coddingham - also revealed that the Sandman fight was settled on early in development. We can see this in the final product, as the game uses this opening fight to introduce some basic mechanics, while also showing off what the sequel is capable of. The team admitted that the part where Sandman flings Spider-Man through the air was meant to show off the "'power of the PS5", so it's not surprising that it was quickly shared online by impressed fans.
GDC continues, with a wide range of talks planned throughout the week. TheGamer will keep you updated on some of the most interesting highlights from the various panels, going over how developers made some of our favourite games.
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