This is where we come back to those crosshairs. The camera’s acrobatics effectively convey a sense of movement and scale that never really coalesced in previous efforts. The camera dynamically pulls in and out as Spider-Man flies through the air, sending his webs in all directions as he keeps himself aloft. The difference between The Amazing Spider-Man: The Game and the open-world efforts that preceded it immediately comes into sharp focus.

Once I’m settled in for the demo, the Beenox rep doing the driving takes a running leap off of the rooftop. There’s also a tiny set of crosshairs at the center of the screen it seems like a minor thing, but I’ll soon learn that it’s one component of a game-changing new feature for open-world Spider-Man games. It’s pulled in very tight as Spidey stands there, showing us the masked hero from the waist up while peering over his shoulder at the yawning city. The level of detail in that costume definitely speaks to this being a newer game. It’s modeled after the one that Andrew Garfield will be wearing in the July 3 movie, which this game will be arriving one week ahead of. My mind immediately drifted to nightmarish memories of chasing red balloons and aiding the helpless people of New York City in their mundane tasks. There was the wall-crawler, standing on a New York City rooftop overlooking the vastness of New York City’s Central Park and the buildings lining its perimeter. At first glance, it looks like we’re back in the Treyarch days of Spider-Man games.

My first sight of the new Spider-Man, freshly returned to open-world gameplay under the guidance of Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions dev Beenox, brought a mix of emotions bubbling to the surface.

Amazing spiderman mobile game