Just as the leaks predicted, Spider-Man is indeed going to be in Square Enix's upcoming Avengers game as a PlayStation-exclusive character. The Spider-Man DLC is due to release on PlayStation platforms for free early next year and for now at least, this doesn't appear to be a timed exclusive.
Sony has had plenty of exclusive DLC deals with big live service games over the last few years, including the likes of Destiny 2 and Call of Duty. With Marvel's Avengers, that stretch will continue, starting off with Spider-Man, although the relationship could last longer than one exclusive DLC.
Here is a quote from the Crystal Dynamics announcement: “We can’t wait for you to add Spider-Man to your Marvel’s Avengers roster in early 2021, and as we’ve promised before, he will be available at no additional cost to owners of the base game, exclusively on PlayStation”.
So far, there is no word on whether Spider-Man will come to other versions of Marvel's Avengers eventually. After all, Sony only owns the movie rights to the character and does not exclusively own Spider-Man in video games. While Spider-Man (PS4) is a high profile exclusive, Spider-Man is free to appear in other games on other platforms, as we have seen with Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on the Nintendo Switch.
KitGuru Says: Spider-Man is one of the biggest Marvel characters and is far too popular to be held hostage. The biggest shame in all of this is that since Spider-Man is exclusive to one platform, he isn't going to be a core part of the main story. Do you think Spider-Man will end up being a timed exclusive? How would you feel about the character never coming to the PC or Xbox versions of the game?