Highlights
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2 made a surprise appearance at the PlayStation State of Play, revealing more about gameplay and the open-world setting.
- Bryan Intihar shared details about fast load times, different suits for Miles and Peter, and open-world traversal and activities.
- The presence of a mysterious green symbol suggests that the illusory villain Mysterio will be featured in the game, building on his previous establishment in Marvel's Spider-Man.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 made a surprise appearance today at the near-spontaneous PlayStation State of Play. Indeed, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 being there at all was unprecedented due to the showcase supposedly only claiming to feature VR and third-party titles, but it also makes sense with previews circulating and impressions being shared this weekend. Either way, Insomniac decided to make its way to this State of Play in order to publicly share more about how moment-to-moment gameplay will be structured in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and its open-world New York City boroughs.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 senior creative director Bryan Intihar managed to get a lot of information into this short open-world debriefing, which revealed how quickly its load times will be on PS5 when swapping between either Spider-Man or using fast travel. Many details may have also gone amiss while the latter half of the showcase featured a staggering amount of suits for both Miles and Peter, such as the fact that players will pursue Lizard through city streets. But one feature in particular from the open world may have blatantly revealed a villain that Marvel’s Spider-Man had already teased.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s ‘Mysterious’ Green Symbols Clearly Allude to Mysterio
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 previously didn’t have many villains to its name. It’s become a staple of open-world superhero games to feature an abundance of antagonists for players to defeat, whether they are optional and pursued through side quests or not, and because not much was known before about how the open world in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 would function, it was not surprising that such details were tight-lipped.
Finally unveiling the open world and especially the AR UI that highlights waypoints makes that almost impossible without only revealing a few seconds of it, or if information is explicitly obscured. Insomniac did this, in fact, to purposefully hide the names of points of interest in the open world and its world map. However, one symbol insignia was on display and even addressed pointedly by Intihar, who described a green, diamond-shaped eye logo as a “mysterious” symbol.
It’s possible that this adjective was meant to only obscure what it could reference further, but the more obvious revelation is that this logo belongs to the illusory villain and special effects artist Mysterio. It isn’t clear what these symbols mark and what Mysterio’s role in the game could be, but with many of them scattered through different districts and boroughs, it makes sense to assume that he would be an antagonist whom players have to complete many prerequisite collectible- or item-hunting tasks for.
How Marvel’s Spider-Man Laid the Brickwork for Mysterio
Mysterio is a beloved villain and his ‘abilities’ or lack thereof could be incredibly exciting in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, but if he does truly appear in the sequel it also won’t be wholly alarming. Mysterio was among the Halloween costumes that students wore to the ESU campus party in Marvel’s Spider-Man, for example, and thus his place in the continuity is already established.
Now that the Lizard’s Dr. Curtis Connors has been revealed to appear in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Mysterio’s inclusion seems only natural since all other makeshift costumes inspired by New York City supervillains had been established in Marvel’s Spider-Man. Likewise, while Scorpion’s hallucinogenic poison brought on an entertaining sequence on its own, it didn’t necessarily feel like a traditional element of the villain.
Instead, Scorpion’s hallucinogens felt much more like a stupefying effect that Mysterio would trap Spider-Man within and seemed to lay a foundation for Mysterio to do so in a future installment. If Mysterio does appear in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, it would be unsurprising to see that same sort of psychoactive sequence reprised, but it would be even more interesting to see if Insomniac chooses to portray Mysterio as a genuine menace or as a toss-away side quest.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches on October 20, exclusively for PS5.
