Although the release of God of War in April was met with immediate praise, massive sales numbers, and early game-of-the-year nominations, Sony did not stop there as, in September, it published yet another enormous PlayStation exclusive in Spider-Man, which impressively broke God of War's record for being the fastest-selling first-party game in Sony's history. Though Spider-Man's staggering success did not keep fans from questioning its integrity, or its puddles.
The controversy, dubbed 'Puddlegate', began a few days before Spider-Man's release, when a Reddit user commented on how the game's trailer shown at E3 2017 displayed larger, sharper, and more defined puddles compared to an alleged graphical downgraded trailer released in 2018. While the screenshots of the two trailers show a clear difference, Insomniac Games quickly dismissed these speculations saying that "the puddles being moved had nothing to do with performance," though some fans remained skeptical.
Now, two months later, it is clear that based on its graphical performance, Spider-Man is top-tier. Despite Puddlegate's enormous presence that enveloped social media for days, which included an Anthem producer mocking the controversy, Insomniac's sales numbers clearly were not dented in the slightest, as Spider-Man broke numerous records shortly after its release. However, Spider-Man's success has not stopped Insomniac or its community director, James Stevenson, from poking fun at fans for the alleged downgrade, as fans now have the ability to add puddle stickers in photo mode, and Stevenson commented on this update on Twitter.
Although this update did include puddle stickers and various photo mode improvements, the addition of a new game plus was the main focus of the patch. The new game plus mode grants players the ability to carry over the progress from their first playthrough to a second playthrough, allowing them to replay the game on a harder difficulty, while retaining the already-achieved progress.
With Spider-Man's Heist DLC coming in less than two days and now the new game plus mode, players, both new to the game and those who have already beaten it, have plenty of new content to stay occupied, and with two more DLC expansions coming first in November, and later in December, fans, for the remainder of the year, will be compelled to regularly return to Spider-Man.
Spider-Man: The Heist DLC expansion releases exclusively for PS4 on October 23.