Highlights

  • Marvel's Spider-Man 2 beautifully weaves Peter Parker's youth into the game's world-building, setting the stage for iconic moments.
  • The future of the franchise can focus on new characters like Miles and Cindy, allowing Peter to gracefully bow out after years of web-slinging.
  • While prequels could be enticing, they also pose the risk of introducing continuity errors and potentially overshadowing newer characters like Miles and Cindy.

Seeing a young Peter Parker and experiencing some iconic moments of that youth was terrific for world-building in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. These playable flashback sequences saw Peter sneak through Queens’ Midtown High with his newfound spider powers and race to meet J. Jonah Jameson at the Daily Bugle.

Even with important flashbacks, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was great about boldly trekking forward and creating a future for its characters rather than a hard-defined past, which has let it not worry much about creating continuity errors. But now that Peter is fastly approaching his 30s and Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 might be his last present-day outing as the wall-crawler—at least in Insomniac’s universe—it could be necessary to pivot to a prequel and explore Peter’s high school and college years if Insomniac wants to preserve the franchise’s charm.

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Peter’s Youth Can Be Explored While Miles and Cindy Helm Marvel’s Spider-Man

Miles Morales and Cindy Moon have a greater potential to lead the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise as Spider-Man and Silk due to how young they are already and how infantile their crime-fighting careers are. Peter being phased out is only natural as a result, nearing a decade of web-slinging himself, but it would be upsetting for him not to play a role in the series any longer.

That’s why a prequel half-sequel would be phenomenal, giving Peter a final entry or handful of entries that all center on pivotal moments in his life. Meanwhile, present-day installments could continue onward and feature as little of Peter as they’d like. Miles and Cindy could adopt classic Spider-Man villains of their own in Insomniac’s Spider-Man universe, not unlike how it altered Tinkerer’s origins and identity to craft a heartbreaking adversary in Miles Morales.

But if Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 ends up being the final Marvel’s Spider-Man game, then the worst-case scenario is that every character is undercut with a lot of interesting developments left unfulfilled. In the event of that occurring, it’ll be a shame if players never get to see more iconic storylines play out from Peter’s storied history in red and blue tights.

Peter Parker Prequels Could Demean Marvel’s Spider-Man’s Continuity

Of course, a possible pitfall Peter Parker prequels could introduce is more continuity errors. Insomniac wouldn’t be able to debut any characters whose lives have impacted Peter’s that aren’t written out somehow before the events of the main installments, for example, and careful attention would need to be paid to lore tidbits backpack collectibles divulged about his history.

Indeed, backpack collectibles are about as much as players have to reflect on Peter’s life before the events of Marvel’s Spider-Man and that’s perhaps a boon since it leaves enough world-building to the imagination without needing to rehash his whole origin for the umpteenth time in Spider-Man media.

It would also be unsatisfying if Peter prequels took away from Miles and Cindy’s own adventures, with Peter’s half-sequels being believably more popular due to his character iconography alone. Marvel’s Spider-Man pushing ahead this whole time only to now go back and do prequels would defeat the purpose, but if there’s any way to preserve the franchise and not have it fatefully end after Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 this would be a viable loophole.

Otherwise, DLC for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 would’ve been a great way to experience more of these seminal memories that helped shape Insomniac’s Peter into the Spider-Man he is today. Insomniac is stretching its legs with Marvel’s Wolverine, too, and perhaps that’s where all of its eggs will be placed if it closes the book on Marvel’s Spider-Man with its upcoming threequel. The series should always want to move forward and not rely on what’s come beforehand, but Insomniac may not have a choice depending on how long Peter’s modern stories stay relevant.