Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 Considering a FNSM App Update Should Be a No-Brainer

The Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise has liberally taken advantage of earpiece comms that aren’t uncommon in many games now as a means for dialogue to fill otherwise menial and quiet lulls when characters aren’t near one another. This has been demonstrated via actual phone calls made between characters when Peter Parker or Miles Morales aren’t in costume and via phone calls made when they’re masked and calls come through in their unseen comms while web-swinging or web-wing gliding through the open world.

It’s immersive enough given the fact that it seamlessly allows characters to communicate with one another, even if characters are somehow able to suddenly call Peter’s comms as Dr. Michaels does in

Marvel’s Spider-Man

However, a more engaging or entertaining means of communication in the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise has been text messages delivered between characters and how Insomniac has elected to present those messages on-screen as pop-up displays for players to read. Though it might not realistically be high on Insomniac’s list of priorities heading into Marvel’s Spider-Man 3, it would be lovely to see the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man app adapt text messaging to add a bit of lore like text logs depicting ongoing conversations in the Spider-Men’s lives.

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Marvel’s Spider-Man’s FNSM App Should Behave a Little Bit More Like an Actual Phone

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man app is essential in selecting which activities, crimes, or side quests to pursue. In the latter, the FNSM app is where players swap which Spider-Man they’re playing as.

Boiled down to its purpose in gameplay, the FNSM app has been a great way to facilitate available activities or quests without needing to scan a map or search aimlessly. Of course, the more gameplay-oriented it becomes, the higher its chances are of not having the same charm that it had when Insomniac debuted it in Miles Morales. If the FNSM app had a text message or calling functionality, characters’ relationships would be emboldened beyond what dialogue players hear in-game.

Peter could text or phone Mary Jane Watson, for example, and seeing previous texts already logged would go a long way in immersively establishing that they’ve had countless text exchanges.

Moreover, it would be fantastic if text message logs were updated for each protagonist while the other isn’t presently active. This messaging feature might be a lot to consider as it would probably require endless dialogue for players to read through, and it being optionally accessible in the FNSM app may not ensure that everyone would read it. Nevertheless, the FNSM app deserves to be more than a glorified quest log, and reading past interactions between characters would be an immersive way of achieving that.

Marvel's Spider-Man_ Miles Morales_20240911144321

Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales feature a social feed that behaves like authentic social media widgets of sorts. The social feed doesn’t contribute to gameplay significantly, but it’s a neat way to have Spider-Man’s interactions with New York City be represented in a way where players can see what citizens are discussing.

Most of the comments players will scroll through are intentionally silly, such as a thread debating whether a burrito is a sandwich. Still, the social feed is definitely a feature that Miles and his best friend Ganke Lee would realistically tap into.

If the social feed returned in Marvel’s Spider-Man 3, it’d be entertaining to see more of how citizens perceive Spider-Man, much less any of the spectacular and overwhelming events they endure or witness on any given day. Indeed, with criminal activity available for Spider-Men to thwart in nearly every minute of gameplay, it is unlikely to ever be a dull or monotonous day in New York City, and a social feed is a perfect outlet for the public’s thoughts and concerns to be poured.