Highlights
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2 introduces new features like web gliding, accessibility options, and expanded combat options, building upon the foundation of its predecessors.
- Player customization is key, with unique abilities and gadgets for both Peter Parker and Miles Morales, allowing for more flashy moves and varied combat styles.
- The game features a strong focus on the development of Peter and Miles as characters, with upgraded suits, new powers, and encounters with iconic villains like Venom, offering a fresh and immersive gameplay experience.
The next Spider-Man game is right around the corner, and it's adding a lot of fresh material to its predecessors' foundation. Set after Marvel's Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will allow players to take control of both Peter Parker and Miles Morales as New York's twin protectors. While it lacks the novelty of Insomniac’s past titles, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is still doing a lot to earn its place as the latest and greatest big-budget Spider-Man video game.
A wealth of new features will quickly become available to players, including web gliding that supplements the acclaimed web-swinging, plenty of accessibility features, and new combat options. Prior Spider-Man titles have done a lot of experimentation with their fighting, ranging from the stance-based gameplay of Spider-Man: Web of Shadows to the more recent electricity-fueled acrobatics of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. Spider-Man 2 seems to be putting together every lesson its peers have learned, and it should keep players experimenting for a long time if it gets its mixture right.
Player Customization Is Key In Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
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The basis for combat is still present in Peter and Miles' past adventures, with both feeling fast, fluid, and powerful. Efforts have been made to differentiate the two Spider-Men, though both will share a basic button layout and various gadgets. The primary things differentiating each superhero will be their unique abilities, equipped to a shortcut menu corresponding to the four face buttons. As gadgets are assigned to a different shortcut, and all are governed by brief cooldowns, it seems players will be able to use a lot more flashy moves in each encounter.
The list of gadgets has grown in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and while they aren’t all available at once via a radial menu anymore, players should only be carrying what they intend to use now. Spider-Man’s new tools include the Upshot, an automated drone that launches enemies, and the area-of-effect Web Grabber trap. Previews have indicated that the Web Grabber yanks every physics object in its vicinity together, which should add a delightfully chaotic element to fights long after more consistent tools are available.
With acrobatics already being the focus of the past two Insomniac Spider-Man games, it seems like elements of player choice were injected into this one. That is best exemplified by the enhanced stealth combat including player-created web line platforms and multi-takedowns, which should make Miles’ invisibility even more effective. However, player choice also extends to accessibility, which not only includes the long accessibility feature list from Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, but also new options like slowing gameplay down to 70%, 50%, and even 30%. All of this should keep Marvel's Spider-Man 2 accessible for any type of player.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Demonstrates Peter And Miles’ Development
The nitty-gritty combat changes go even further than that. After leaving things to Miles in his self-titled game, Peter Parker is back with a further upgraded mechanized suit. Reminiscent of his mentor Otto Octavius, Peter now has the Iron Spider arms that formerly served as a suit power as a permanent fixture of his fighting style. While they’re mostly confined to special moves, it makes sense to focus on such an iconic Spider-Man suit variation to give Peter’s combat a stronger identity.
This is on top of his Symbiote suit, which offers its own brutal gameplay that manhandles groups of enemies no matter where they are. While the black suit seems especially strong compared to other combat options, Spider-Man 2’s story could acknowledge the black suit's power and play with this as it goes on. It seems to benefit from unique upgrades, so only time will tell how story and gameplay intersect when it comes to the Symbiote suit and promised encounters with Venom.
If Peter gets two gameplay styles, then it's only fair for Miles to have the same. The fine details of the two differently-colored bioelectric Venom powers are unknown for now, but Miles will not be left wanting cool abilities. Even with the famous spider arms and black suit available to Peter, some players may still find themselves favoring Miles’ electricity powers, which compete with Electro's own at their most spectacular. Whether it's the standard chain lightning, giant lasers, or outright teleportation, Miles has learned a lot of tricks since his first outing as Spider-Man.
Spider-Man’s Rogues’ Gallery Is Back In Full Force
With the growing number of ways the Spider-Men can take down their foes, it only makes sense that those foes return the favor. Enemy crowds are often large, and their variety is increased to match. From snipers and drones to explosive experts and hunters that tie up Spider-Man with their own nets, players will be kept on their toes as they deal with all kinds of enemy factions and supervillains. As there's even a type of enemy that can lock player skills while nearby, some planning will be necessary in Spider-Man 2’s battles.
Parries can help ease some of that pressure, however. While creative players did find limited ways to parry with suit power shockwaves in the original Marvel's Spider-Man, including Quips hilariously enough, parrying is now a dedicated button. Certain melee-oriented enemies should prove vulnerable to parries, especially if they’re too nimble for a simple dodge to open them up.
Not everything can be parried, and some attacks like the aforementioned snipers’ bullets will be marked as unblockable. However, parries should be another useful tool in both Spider-Men's efforts to clean up the streets, and will probably result in some devastating follow-ups. As similar as Marvel's Spider-Man 2 gameplay can look to the past two games, it's bringing a lot of new elements to the table, and they all look like smart evolutions of Spider-Man’s distinct and versatile fighting styles.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be released October 20 exclusively for PS5.
