Due to Spidey's pop-culture savviness, there are a lot of Shout Outs.
- The Noir suit's ability is called "The Sound of Silence".
- When Peter turns on the radio in Octavius's lab, it starts playing "Let's Go Sunning".
- During one surveillance mission, Spidey is tasked with stopping a casino heist. Among the crew are an Eastern European gangster named Niko and his unreliable nephew, Roman.
- When Spidey stops said heist, he quips, "I love it when a plan falls apart."
- When Spidey infiltrates an abandoned warehouse at the docks, he mentions this feels like a horror movie and asks if there are any fishermen with a grudge and a hook for a hand.
- Screwballs fans on her livestream include references to villains like the Enforcers.
- The Firehouse, Hook & Ladder Company 8 building has a green ghost painted on the back in reference to the Ghostbusters.
- One of Spidey's Limit Breaks is called "Web Blossom" and involves spinning in place and firing webs in all directions.
- Another suit power adds electricity to his punches. It's even activated with the same button combination!
- When Spider-Man knocks out a mook in a stealth mission, he might say Good night, goon!
- Spidey greets Vulture with a friendly "Yo, Adrian!" While the Vulture yells at him to quit babbling, Electro actually responds by telling Spidey that he must break him in a strong Russian accent, much to the web-head's delight.
- When talking about his "Spider-Cop" persona, Peter at one point says "Part man, part spider, all cop."
- One of the Scarlet Spider holo-decoys recorded distraction lines is "I am Spartacu-I mean, Spider-Man!"
- The Japanese dub does one with these too, where one of the decoys will say, "I am the emissary from Hell," referencing the '70s Spider-Man show from Japan.
- During a side mission stopping the Demons' car while they have an armed bomb, Spidey may randomly say that it reminds him a lot of "that movie with the bomb on the bus." though he can't quite remember its name.
- Him not being able to remember the name might also be a Simpsons reference, when Homer had the same difficulty remembering the movie name.
- Upon being attacked by Sable's jetpack troops and learning from Yuri that the mercenaries have declared martial law on the city in light of the Sinister Six's actions, Spider-Man asks if anyone else besides him is getting a Nineteen Eighty-Four vibe from the whole situation.
- A very subtle one occurs during the Midtown Research Mission "Chemical Leak". He follows the trail and in three separate spots he finds traces of mercury, nitric acid, and ethanol then wonders why that sounds familiar. It's familiar because that's the chemical combination used by none other than Heisenberg, the kingpin of Albuquerque drug crime himself, to blow a hole in a building during the first season of Breaking Bad.
- Funnily enough, one of the in-game social feed users has the username of GottaPhoneMalone, a nice reference to the spin-off, Better Call Saul.
- In the Sable Lookout Crime, one of Spider-Man's quips is asking the soldiers if they should call him by say... flashing a Spider Symbol in the sky but stops himself "before he gets sued".
- When Scorpion (ambiguously) calls Spider-Man after injecting him with a hallucinogenic neurotoxin, he taunts Spidey saying "Have fun chasing pink elephants."
- There is a mission in the Turf Wars DLC called Yuri's Revenge.
- One of Tombstone's side missions is called "What's He Building in There?", the name of a Tom Waits song.
- One mission is called "What's in the Box?", referencing the famous line from 7.
- In The Heist DLC, the social feed makes a double reference. Either to the Batman Parody character "Catman" from The Fairly OddParents!, or to the actual, lesser known and incredibly campy Catman from DC Comics.N_David: I'm fully onboard with '''NYCWallCrawler''' and Black Cat getting back together #SpiderCat.
DeweyM: Why not #CatMan?.
ColomboP: ...no. - One type of random side mission has thugs pinning down cops with sniper rifles. After beating one, Spidey might quip that it feels like a new-age western, then say, "Yippee kiyay, mother-spider."
- The new Arachnid Rider suit for the PS5 remaster is clearly a combination of the aesthetics of suits from Kamen Rider and the Ultra Series, just with Spider-Man's color scheme.
- The trophy list also has references as well.
- A Hammerhead base side mission has Peter comment "Imagine working here 9 to 5. What a way to make a living."
