Spider-Man games are skateboarding games, at least in spirit.

In many ways, skateboarding also encourages this new way of seeing the world around you.

For the first time, it was possible to link vertical tricks seamlessly into horizontal movement.

Miles Morales uses his web-wings to keep him aloft about New York City, which is blazing with evening sunlight, in this shot from Spider-Man 2

This was of course true in the previous games as well, but it’s even more true here.

There’s an unwritten agreement that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 establishes with the player early on.

While there’s very few tangible reasons not to, you must touch the ground as little as possible.

A skater performs a revert in mid-air in an abandoned factory in this screen from Tony Hawk’s Pro-Skater 1+2

2014’sSunset Overdrivewas, in many ways, a testing ground for the traversal later developed for Spider-Man.

I’ll get digging.

Cover image for YouTube video

Both Peter Parker and Miles Morales take to the skies of New York in this key art from Spider-Man 2.

This a typically busy screenshot from Sunset Overdrive, featuring a punkish hero rail-grinding around a rollercoaster called Demon Slayer, while lots of things explode.