Marvel's Avengers next DLC, Spider-Man: With Great Power, doesn’t come with any new story mission. During an interview for IGN, Avengers’ Gameplay Director Philippe Therien underlined how the team’s goal is to make content available for every player, which led to the decision not to include story missions PlayStation-exclusive DLC.

Since Marvel’s Avengers was released in August 2020, Crystal Dynamics has already offered two Operations packs focused on Hawkeye and Kate Bishop. There was also a more significant expansion focused on Black Panther, which was branded War for Wakanda. Each of the three previous DLC came with a set of story missions, guiding the players through a brand new playable story featuring the new super-heroes. Players expected Spider-Man to receive the same treatment, but that’s not the case, as the Web Crawler’s story will be told exclusively by cinematics and collectible art pieces. In fact, Crystal Dynamics is rebranding the Spider-Man DLC as a Hero Event to underline how the new content works differently from previous heroes’ additions.

As Therien explains it, the decision was motivated by the exclusivity of the Spider-Man DLC. Due to a contract between Crystal Dynamics and Sony, Spider-Man: With Great Power will be available only for players who own a PlayStation 4 or a PlayStation 5. That means Crystal Dynamics would have put too much effort into content many players won’t be able to access if they had developed story missions. In Therien’s words, “we want to spend our efforts on content that everyone can enjoy.”

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Image via Square Enix

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Marvel’s Avengers received mixed reviews as well as bad sales numbers — the reason being that, while the story campaign brings all the excitement of playing with your favorite heroes, the post-game is repetitive and revolves around a loot system put in place to induce players to expend even more money through microtransactions. Another common criticism concerned the Spider-Man DLC being locked as a console-exclusive, alienating PC and Xbox players.

By not releasing story missions, Crystal Dynamics reduces the advantage of the PlayStation version of Marvel’s Avengers, which could be understood as a response to the criticism. However, Therien says “that was a decision that's been that way since the beginning.” Be it as it may, the constant release of free DLCs keeps giving access to new characters, showing that the Marvel’s Avengers team is willing to pour more content into the game and keep players engaged.

Spider-Man: With Great Power will be released on November 30, 2021. Marvel's Avengers is available now on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Google Stadia, and PC.