Here’s Why Spider-Man 2’s Fall Damage Makes Sense, According to Science and Lore [IGN]

Insomniac’s Spider-Man 2 is finally here, bringing with it a slew of new gameplay features including the ability to wingsuit accross the New York skyline, and, if you so choose, the opportunity to take fall damage upon botching a poorly thought out web swing.

The Spider-Man community has been at odds with itself for years now over the question of whether the addition of fall damage would enhance the gameplay experience, and whether it would even make sense given the protagonist’s superhuman abilities.

Last month, IGN confirmed Spider-Man 2 includes the option for players to toggle fall damage on and off, reigniting the debate. “Not having this in the previous entries was always a strange little detail that was missing,” said IGN reader Drogom in response to our article confirming the feature. “I expect fall damage in all open world games because it means you have to pay attention to traversal. The immunity of plummeting from a skyscraper unscathed was the most video game-y thing.”

Check out how Spider-Man 2 looks with and without fall damage in the video below:

Others took a less favourable view of the new addition, with some once again returning to the question of whether fall damage should even be a consideration for heroes who are part man and part spider. “Why is fall damage considered realistic in a superhero game?” questioned xShoot4WarAmpsx, while Reddit user Salt_Restaurant_7820 remarked: “Um they’re spiders they don’t get hurt falling, this is breaking the immersion.”

With our interest piqued, IGN set out to address the question of whether the spider boys are capable of taking fall damage, using some off the shelf quasi-scientific reasoning of our own, paired with the expertise of a real world spider expert, and the lore friendly insights gifted by one of our resident nerds.

As a jumping off point (pun intended) we decided to take a look at the characteristics of the spiders whose bites were responsible for the creation of the heroes. Sadly, at the start of Marvel’s Spider-Man (2018) Peter Parker had already come into his powers, so we didn’t get a chance to see the eight-legged radioactive freak that bit him. However, we did get a good long look at the small genetically engineered OsCorp spider that sunk its fangs into Miles Morales.

Miles’ spider is pretty small, which means it has a low mass (and therefore weight), and a relatively high surface area, which is important, as the relationship between these two factors is vital when it comes to determining the fall rate of an object in a non-vaccuum environment, where air resistance is a factor.

In other words, a small spider would accelerate towards the ground at a rate much slower than a human body, which boasts a higher mass, and a proportionately lower surface area. The end result is that even if the spider collides with the ground having accelerated to its maximum rate of fall — known as terminal velocity — there’s a good chance that it still wouldn’t be moving fast enough to impact with enough force to seriously hurt itself.

“As a veterinarian with spiders as patients (‘spider veterinarian’), I can tell you that small spiders (and many other small animals) can (sometimes) fall from reasonable heights without significant traumatic injuries — or damaging internal or external structures (tending not to take significant ‘fall damage),” explained Daniel Dombrowski, chief veterinarian and director of veterinary sciences at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences, while speaking to IGN.

“This can be due to many factors [like] anatomy and structure or shape and/or sometimes due to behavior, such as ballooning spiders spinning a thin strands of silk web threading to help them safely kite through the sky, eventually landing without harm.”

Spider-Man is also capable of shooting out webs and using gadgets like the wing suit implemented in Insomniac’s latest game to continue hurtling across the New York skyline. However, we’re exploring a scenario wherein for one reason or another, Spidey isn’t able to use his considerable talents to slow his fall.

Regardless, just because the spiders that bit Peter and Miles were likely capable of surviving a large fall unscathed, that doesn’t mean that the spider boys themselves would be able to as well. So, next up we looked at whether the acts of arachnid aggression had transferred any key attributes to the heroes that would allow them to weather an otherwise fatal fall. Firstly, its obvious from a glance that neither spider imparted their surface area characteristics to the heroes, as both are still very much humanoid in shape, and would therefore have the air resistance stats to match.

We also know they have body masses vaguely in-line with normal people, as a hero with the weight of a spider wouldn’t be able to perform the acrobatic pendulum web swings seen in the game if that wasn’t the case. Not to mention the fact that we see Miles fall at the same rate as the Tinkerer as he attempts to rescue them at the climax of Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

Following that logic, we can assume that both heroes would fall to the ground at a similar speed as you or I, presuming they choose to keep their web slingers sheathed. So, if Parker were to fall from the tallest building populating Insomniac’s digital New York skyline, he would likely hit the pavement at a speed approaching 200 km per hour.

However, if we’ve learned anything from Insomniac’s take on the characters, its that their apotheosis into heroes dramatically transformed their bodies, giving them the ability to perform feats of strength unimaginable to normal human beings.

“Spider web silk can be more than 5x stronger than the same diameter of steel wire. Studies have shown that some species of spiders can hold up to 170x their own weight,” said Dombrowski. “So, if this roughly translated to Spider-Man and he weighed in at a lean 150 pounds… he could hold onto over 25,000 pounds or over 12 tons! … if we can ignore some physics of scaling such as the Square Cube Law.”

The spider bites also gave the pair super human levels of damage resistance. The question is, did their transformation render Peter and Miles so tough that they simply laugh in the face of gravity, and ignore fall damage alltogether? Predictably, when dealing with comic book characters whose abilities lay beyond the perview of accepted science, the answer is not straightforward.

“In general, the scaling of strength and power (and damage) from tiny objects or animals such as spiders to larger objects / animals such as in the direct comparison of spiders to Spider-Man can be a challenge,” continued Dombrowski. “This comes down in part to physics and is illustrated (in part) by the Square Cube Law, essentially stating that, when an object or animal is scaled up size, surface area is squared while volume is cubed. This has lots of implications for animal physiology.”

However, Dombrowski did note that Spider-Man would likely suffer serious damage as a result of falling from a great height. “Assuming a dead fall, no behavioral response or reaction (unconscious), no responsive reflexes, based on what we know about physics and spiders, Spider-Man’s size alone (volume / weight to surface area noted above) falling at terminal velocity would likely lead to some significant traumatic fall damage,” said the scientist.

So, there’s no quick and easy way to perfectly figure out how much damage Spider-Man can take. Therefore, to address this ultimate query we decided to pass from the realm of science to that of opinion and comic book lore, and who better to turn to than one of IGN’s staff writers (and apex nerds), Jesse Schedeen.

“Spider-Man has the proportionate strength and agility of a spider, which the comics have mapped out to be about 50 times that of an ordinary human,” said Schedeen. “So it stands to reason that he’s much more resistant to fall damage than your average person, and much more capable of dodging his way out of a large fall. But he’s not an invertebrate arachnid, so I see no reason to assume he can’t be hurt in a fall under the right circumstances.”

Schedeen went on to explain that the fall damage was actually explored in the 2005 comic Marvel Knights Spider-Man #3, which sees the hero battle supervillain Electro atop a tall building. “Electro shocks Spidey so badly he’s knocked unconscious and flies off the building, landing on a police car many stories below. That injury puts Peter in the hospital, and likely would have killed him if he had landed on the pavement. So while Spider-Man is strong, he’s hardly invulnerable to fall damage.”

So there we have it, both Spider-Man lore and, to the extent possible, scientific reasoning show that Spider-Man is capable of taking fall damage, and Insomniac’s brand of video game logic seems to support the idea too. After all, while these video game iterations of Spider-Man are insanely tough, they’re far from invincible. We’ve seen Parker and Morales get hurt after getting thrown through walls, shot, stabbed, bludgeoned, and even getting slapped around by simple street thugs. The fact is that impacts hurt, no matter the source.

But its difficult to deny that there are some inconsistancies surrounding how Spider-Man and Miles Morales takes damage in the comic and video game universes. It’s also worth noting that fall damage in Spider-Man 2 is toggled off by default, so you needn’t worry about it impacting your gameplay experience or lore sensitivities unless you want it to.

In IGN’s 8/10 review we said that “Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 delivers Insomniac’s best tale yet, and despite its open world falling short, is a reliably fun superhero power trip”. Be sure to check out IGN’s interactive map of New York City and our comprehensive guide to ensure that you get the most out of Insomniac’s latest web-slinging adventure.

Anthony is a freelance contributor covering science and video gaming news for IGN. He has over eight years experience of covering breaking developments in multiple scientific fields and absolutely no time for your shenanigans. Follow him on Twitter @BeardConGamer