WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Marvel’s Spider-Man and its second story DLC expansion, "Turf Wars," available now on the PlayStation 4.
The second story expansion for Insomniac Games' Marvel's Spider-Man was released this week as part of the PlayStation 4 game's The City That Never Sleeps DLC, which follows up on the main game with new adventures.
Titled "Turf Wars," the DLC expansion takes place after the events of both the main game and the first DLC expansion, last month's "The Heist." As strongly hinted at by the previous DLC, New York City has plunged into a citywide gang war with crime lord Hammerhead leading his men into a bid to wipe out the rest of the Maggia families running organized crime in the city following the incarceration of Kingpin and Mister Negative as seen in the main story of the popular video game. As such, the latest adventures of Spidey on the PlayStation 4 are perhaps the darkest yet while setting up the final piece of an announced trilogy of DLC expansions to be released sometime late next month.
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Following the explosive ending to "The Heist," Felicia Hardy (better known to comic book readers as the Black Cat) is missing and presumed dead, with all the blackmail material she gathered against Hammerhead allegedly up in flames. However, Spider-Man doesn't believe his partner and occasional love interest to have been killed as no body was found in the destruction of her apartment, making her return a virtual guarantee.
With the Black Cat and her potential damning evidence out of the way, Hammerhead has launched an all-out assault on the rival crime families aided by stolen technology and weapons from Silver Sable's private military company. With next month's DLC expansion titled "Silver Lining," Sable returning to New York after the unauthorized appropriation of her weaponry being used in widespread violence is a strong possibility; a potential Silver Sable and Black Cat crossover before Sony's plans for a team-up film starring the two Spider-Man supporting characters.
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After being completely absent during "The Heist," Captain Yuri Watanabe, Spider-Man's ally and trusted confidante in the NYPD, is back in the big way in "Turf Wars." Yuri's hunt for Hammerhead amidst the chaos takes a dark turn early in the expansion as an entire squad under her command is killed by the hard-headed mob boss. While Spider-Man initially assumes his friend on the force wants to avenge her fallen comrades-in-arms, Mary Jane Watson does some investigative reporting of her own and discovers Yuri's father was a cop exposed as working with Hammerhead leading his life to fall into ruin. As Yuri's thirst for revenge intensifies, her working relationship with Spider-Man is seemingly severed for good as is her career when she shoots a defeated Hammerhead point blank in the head despite being confronted by most of the assembled NYPD on the scene.
However, even taking a high-tech Sable round right to the forehead is evidently not enough to put down Hammerhead. In a post-credits scene following the completion of the expansion's main story, a mobster disguised as a paramedic subdues the other EMTs as the ambulance carrying Hammerhead's body drives away from the scene. Using a high-grade taser, the crook revives Hammerhead by electrocuting his boss back to life.
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Hammerhead isn't the only villain slated for a return; social media personality turned supervillain Screwball pesters Peter Parker throughout the events of the DLC with new challenges that endanger the citizens of New York. As he works through the challenges, Spidey is able to triangulate Screwball's location based on her broadcasts...or so he thinks. When Spider-Man attempts to corner Screwball and lock her away for good, he discovers she has set up once again, luring the webslinger into an ambush while promising that the two will cross paths again for a "season three" of new web-broadcast challenges.
But there may be an unexpected wild card throughout all the chaos. As Spider-Man reviews the heads of the other Maggia families, he notes one of the dons has been targeting innocent families lately. Shortly thereafter, Spider-Man finds the Bar with No Name, the infamous watering hole for New York's criminal underground, completely shot up with no apparent survivors. While the wallcrawler assumes Yuri is behind the attack, he also is taken aback by the brutal efficiency used during the ensuing gunfight. One of the longtime foes of the Maggia in the comics is Frank Castle whose family was killed by the mob in the crossfire of a hit in Central Park. While Yuri has certainly been pursuing the Maggia with previously unseen savagery, perhaps the Spider-Man PlayStation 4 universe is about to introduce their version of The Punisher.
Developed by Insomniac Games, Marvel's Spider-Man: Turf Wars is available now on PlayStation 4, and also includes three new skins: the original, comics-accurate Iron Spider armor, the bulletproof Spider-Armor MK I, and the Spider Clan suit from the Marvel Mangaverse. The next DLC, "Silver Lining," is scheduled to drop in December.