Marvel's Spider-Man final boss fight was reduced in size to avoid crunch

Marvel's Spider-Man developer Insomniac has revealed it drastically cut down the scale of the game's final boss fight so as to prevent crunching development staff.

Speaking recently in a keynote presentation at the Develop: Brighton conference in the U.K. (and as first reported by GamesIndustry.biz), Insomniac CEO Ted Price revealed the final boss fight of Marvel's Spider-Man underwent some dramatic changes. "Originally, we were going to have a boss battle that took you all over New York City, and it was way out of scope," Price began explaining.

"The temptation is to just brute force it, put our heads down and run through the brick wall. But the team took a step back and thought about what was important to the players, and that was the breakdown of the relationship between Peter and his former mentor, Doctor Octavious," the CEO continued. Price adds that because the development team was creative within the restraints they were given, they realized they didn't "need to destroy half of New York to pay off the relationship."

"As a result, the final battle is much more up close and personal, and has a far bigger emotional impact than planned -- and it fit within the time we had," Price concludes. Insomniac's CEO actually used his keynote speech at the Develop conference to hammer home the importance of finding a balance between "excellence and wellbeing," something that Price said is "a crucial goal" throughout all of Insomniac's projects.

This actually isn't the first time we've heard of counter-crunch initiatives at Insomniac. Earlier this year, two developers on Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart celebrated a "completely crunch free" production on the sequel, saying that management actively encouraged the development team to avoid burnout and overworking. One game designer even wrote that they worked 40 hour weeks the entire time they were on the project, which was met with high praise by others.