The recent Insomniac Games data breach, which leaked tons of confidental documents, unannounced projects and more information, has revealed that a sequel to Sunset Overdrive was once in development at the studio but it was cancelled internally in favour of Marvel’s Spider-Man. Sunset Overdrive 2 would’ve followed up on the 2014 action-adventure game that was exclusive to Xbox One (later coming to PC as well).
As revealed by Reddit, one user spotted Sunset Overdrive 2 in the leaked Insomniac Games documents though it was seemingly cancelled (or development had halted) in order for the studio to presumably pivot towards 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man. This was a wise decision considering that the first game didn’t exactly sell well and having the keys to the most popular superhero in the world would be a dream IP for any developer to work on.
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The first Sunset Overdrive released in 2014 as an Xbox One exclusive, receiving mostly positive reviews at launch. Sadly, the fact that it was a new IP coupled with being an Xbox One exclusive – a console that was selling considerably less than the PS4 at the time – didn’t translate to strong sales. Leaked internal documents showed that it had only managed to sell just over 1.8 million copies as of early 2022. According to another recent report, the game apparently turned a profit of only $567.
A sequel to Sunset Overdrive would’ve been a big gamble for Xbox unless it had plans to make the game multi-platform. In the early years of the Xbox One, the exclusives weren’t landing as well as Microsoft would’ve hoped so it’s easy to see why Insomniac decided to shift towards Marvel’s Spider-Man instead.
In other reports, newly released documents have revealed updated sales figures for several PS4 and PS5 games. Concept art and early build gameplay for Marvel’s Wolverine also surfaced as a result of the hack, along with the future of Insomniac releases for the next decade.
Source: Reddit