Spider-Man PS4 PlayStation 4 1

Well, here we are again, reporting on a rumour with very little to substantiate it. Nerd Leaks – they're back apparently – hinted today that Sony may be working on a Spider-Man game for the PlayStation 4. Bizarre, right? Utterly bonkers, but it is – or was – listed on the resume of motion capture performer Stephen Oyoung. That page has since been pulled.

According to the CV, though, Oyoung recently worked on an "Untitled Spider-Man PS4 Project" for the Japanese giant. The wording doesn't necessarily mean that this has to be a game – it could be a virtual reality project, for example – but it's quite literally all that we have to go on for now. Make of the facts what you will.

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Perhaps the bigger question, then, is whether this is likely? Sony is obviously deeply entangled in the movie rights to the Spider-Man franchise, but Sony Pictures and Sony Interactive Entertainment generally operate independently – even if Kaz Hirai has attempted to unify the company a little better since taking charge.

The big red flag for us, though, is that the PlayStation maker doesn't generally wholly fund the development of games unless it has ownership of the intellectual property. There have been exceptions to this rule – Guerrilla Cambridge famously made 24: The Game, for example – but it rarely ever strays from it.

If it were to make an exception given the size and scope of the Spider-Man brand, then Sucker Punch would obviously make an outstanding fit, but as far as we understand it, Activision still has exclusive rights to create any video game adaptations of the web slinger. Marvel has said that it has some big console games in the works, but we just can't see Sony being involved.

Stranger things have definitely happened – they made three movies in which Tobey Maguire played Peter Parker, for instance – but this is one rumour that seems unlikely to us. It's one to keep an eye on as we edge ever closer to E3, though, we suppose.

[source twitter.com, via resumes.breakdownexpress.com, neogaf.com, polygon.com]