Insomniac's live service Spider-Man game was cancelled a while back

According to reports, illegally-obtained confidential material stolen from Insomniac Games indicates the studio had pitched a live service Spider-Man game, but this project had been cancelled a while back.

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Microtransactions are great for business. Sony's games division makes billions of dollars a year from its 30% commission on live service games like Fortnite, Call of Duty, Apex Legends, and Genshin Impact. PlayStation sees how much money these games make and now it wants a piece of the pie. That's why Sony has embarked on an ambitious plan to release 6 live service games by 2025--it used to be 12, but Sony delayed half of these games.

Some games, like Naughty Dog's online multiplayer take on The Last of Us, have been cancelled. Other cut projects include a multiplayer Spider-Man game pitched by Insomniac Games.

Read Also:Spider-Man 2 cost more to make than what Sony paid for Insomniac Games

The project was reportedly called Spider-Man: The Great Web and was described as "Spider-Man meets GTA Online." The game's pitch document was acquired via an illegal Rhysida ransomware attack that saw 1.7 terabytes of confidential and sensitive information stolen from Insomniac's database servers.

The leaked info gleaned via the cyber attack also revealed a multi-year slate of upcoming projects from Insomniac, including announced games like Wolverine, and other unannounced projects like an X-Men game and Spider-Man 3. The Great Web multiplayer game was not included in this slate, leading many to believe it had been cancelled.

It turns out that the project had actually be shut down a while ago. Sources tell Bloomberg's Jason Schreier that the multiplayer game was just part of the outdated information included in the ill-gotten files.

Sony has since scaled back its live service plans and it remains to be seen which projects will actually release.