The hype train for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is only just leaving the station, but fan speculation is already running wild, especially regarding some of the latest rumors. A recent industry rumor has suggested that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will not only feature one Symbiote suit, but will have a Symbiote variant for every suit in the game. It's still unknown just how much this will affect the actual gameplay of the sequel, if at all, but Insomniac Games should take a look at the 2005 Ultimate Spider-Man game for some Symbiote inspiration.
Releasing on PlayStation 2, GameCube, and Xbox, Ultimate Spider-Man gave Marvel fans the ability to play as the version of Spidey from the Ultimate series of comics. Using a vibrant comic book-like art style, and using much of the same gameplay foundations already laid out in the iconic Spider-Man 2, Ultimate Spider-Man is widely considered to be one of the Wall-Crawler's best outings. The addition of one particular character makes the game the perfect starting point for Marvel's Spider-Man 2's Symbiote gameplay.
Drawing Inspiration From Ultimate Spider-Man's Venom Gameplay
Ultimate Spider-Man splits its gameplay into two distinct sections. The first section sees the player take control of Ultimate Spidey as he chases down the Ultimate versions of some of his most iconic villains. The other half of the game lets players take control of Spider-Man nemesis Venom, in a series of missions that range from fighting Wolverine in a bar, to fighting the Web-Head himself.
One of the best aspects of the game is the variation of gameplay between its two playable characters. Spider-Man is much more agile, with his open-world traversal involving fast-paced swinging and zipping, and his combat emphasizing the use of webs to stun and immobilize his opponents. Venom, on the other hand, uses brute strength to get the job done.
Venom uses his Symbiote tentacles to zip around the environment, along with a huge leap that can carry the player across a good distance of the map. Most of Venom's combat abilities are related to huge and powerful swings of his tentacles, or grabs, which allow the player to smash the grabbed enemy into the ground, throw them violently into a wall, or consume the enemy.
One of the core mechanics of Venom's gameplay in Ultimate Spider-Man is this consuming mechanic, whereby players need to grab and eat NPCs in order to regenerate their health. Venom's health bar is constantly decreasing, so a player will need to keep consuming NPCs in order to stay alive. An interesting facet of this mechanic is that non-enemy NPCs actually give Venom more health than enemies.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 could use Venom's gameplay in Ultimate Spider-Man as a basis for how the Symbiote suit should work. The key gameplay differences between Spidey and Venom in Ultimate should be carried over to Spider-Man 2, as it's important to convey to a player just how much of a difference the suit makes to Spider-Man's character and abilities.
In Marvel's Spider-Man 2, the Symbiote suit should give the player increased strength, and a greater jump distance, but at a trade-off for the need to be constantly fueled by energy from NPCs. Insomniac could even keep the mechanic that rewards players with more health if they consume friendly NPCs, as this would be an easy way to cement Peter's corruption, and just how much the suit is affecting his morality.
If the rumors are true that every suit in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will have a Symbiote variant, then there's plenty of room for potential experimentation. For instance, one particular Symbiote suit could require energy to boost Spider-Man's speed, while another could require energy for a strength boost, thus giving the player more options on how the Symbiote suit could affect gameplay.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is currently in development.
