Spider-Man: The Venom Factor (lost unreleased Spider-Man PC game; 1996-1997)

Title screen for Spider-Man: The Venom Factor

Status: Lost

Spider-Man: The Venom Factor is a cancelled 1997 video game developed by Saffire and was to be published by Byron Preiss Multimedia for Windows 95 PC systems.

Background

The game was to be a sequel to the 1996 PC game, Spider-Man: The Sinister Six, also published by Byron Preiss Multimedia but developed by Brooklyn Multimedia. Spider-Man: The Sinister Six was a choose your own adventure style game with action boss battle and puzzle segments, it's likely this sequel was to follow the roughly same formula of gameplay. Visually its predecessor was a blend of 3D background elements with 2D drawn characters, but Spider-Man: The Venom Factor looked to entirely use 3D characters and 3D backgrounds.

The archived website for Spider-Man: The Sinister Six lists that a sequel was on the way called Spider-Man: The Venom Factor and nothing more was thought to be known of the game until the archived website of developer Saffire (Saffire was also working on the cancelled Marvel 2099: One Nation Under Doom video game) was seen to be listing Spider-Man: The Venom Factor amongst its completed games. Saffire shared a screen from the game as well as a sample of an animated cutscene from the game with Spider-Man hiding from a symbiote creature in a lab setting.

Synopsis

Spider-Man: The Venom Factor was to be based on the novel of the same name written by Diane Duane, published by Byron Preiss (as evidenced by the same type of symbiote creature from that novel appearing in the animated cutscene from this game). There is a Venom-like creature on the loose that accidentally murders a man in its pursuit of consuming radioactive materials. Venom doesn't kill innocents so Spider-Man must help Venom clear his name. The Hobgoblin is stealing radioactive parts putting him right in the path of the Venom-like creature as well as Spider-Man and Venom. The novel was the first installment in a trilogy of books with Spider-Man and Venom, it featured the Hobgoblin- who was shown to be part of the game from the title screen. The other two novels in the trilogy featured the Lizard and Doctor Octopus, but there's nothing to suggest they were part of this game with all present knowledge.

Cancellation/Availability

It is not known why the game wasn't released, or if it was truly as far along in development as Saffire's website claimed it was. But on the page of Computer Gaming World #154 there is information that the game was supposed to be released in the fall of 1997 this page

Gallery

Cutscene from Spider-Man: The Venom Factor
Magazine Page

External Links

References