The gameplay reveal for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 at this year’s PlayStation Showcase gave fans a lot to unpack about the game, such as how Peter Parker and Miles Morales would play as distinguishable Spider-Men, how the Lizard nestles into the narrative, and how the symbiote is beginning to affect Peter’s behavior. It would not be long, however, until fans got to hear more about it. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s release date was announced at Summer Game Fest along with a full reveal of what Venom will look like, and the reason why Venom was revealed there via concept art seems obvious now that the sequel is in its full marketing swing this summer.
Following Summer Game Fest, it was not long before a PlayStation blog post for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was published that gave a breakdown of each edition available for purchase. This offered a look at the game’s key art, a slew of edition-exclusive and early-unlock suit cosmetics, and a statue that commemorates its Collector’s edition. These details were all fantastic to finally have and pre-orders have since gone live for players to choose whichever edition they please—besides the Collector’s edition having sold out within minutes. Rather, there is one glaring omission that is noticeable between Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s editions that might determine the sequel will not have its own DLC.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Has a Glaring Omission in Its Special Edition Content
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is already disassociating from its previous marketing choices in a few ways, most prominently by having a Collector’s edition with the 19-inch statue already fully unveiled for fans to see, featuring both Spider-Men battling Venom. Further, fans will also notice that throughout its Digital Deluxe and Collector’s editions that there is no mention of post-launch DLC chapters included.
Marvel’s Spider-Man’s The City That Never Sleeps DLC featured three post-launch chapters with their own catalogs of suits and featured gripping stories with Black Cat, Silver Sable, Yuri Watanabe, and Hammerhead at their helm. Fewer details were known about what the DLC actually contained at the time that it was announced, though pre-release marketing explicitly advertised them for players so that they were better informed about which edition they should choose to pre-order.
Of course, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 not marketing its own DLC yet doesn’t necessarily mean that there isn’t any DLC planned for some point in the future, but it does mean that there aren’t any post-launch chapters to anticipate at the moment. It’s entirely plausible that Insomniac has its hands full with the sequel’s base game, let alone its other Marvel outing, Marvel’s Wolverine, and instead plans to work on DLC separately once Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has gone gold and shipped.
It’s still unfortunate, though, since having DLC to look forward to was a great incentive to pre-order a certain edition of Marvel’s Spider-Man and immediately gave fans something to look forward to after they had wrapped their time on the base game’s contents. Now that pre-orders are already out there, the opportunity has passed to bundle potential DLC with its special editions as Marvel's Spider-Man did.
On the other hand, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 could be so large that it encompasses as much or more content than Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered has, with no reason for a post-launch DLC since all planned content made it into the base game. Otherwise, DLC plans could be announced before the game launches this October, or not at all, but only time will tell as more information is eventually shared.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches on October 20, exclusively for PlayStation 5.
