Highlights
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has the potential to feature the best traversal system of any superhero video game with its improved web-swinging mechanics.
- The game addresses a long-standing issue with previous Spider-Man games by introducing Web Wings, allowing players to glide through the air. This can make it so that Central Park is no longer a pain to navigate.
- With the addition of Web Wings and the Super Slingshot mechanic, players might be able to cross the entirety of Central Park with just one button press, making it a breeze to navigate.
Spider-Man games have been around for over three decades now, and as fans would hope and expect, they've evolved quite a bit over the years. Much like the rest of the video game industry, the more technology advanced over the years, the bigger Spider-Man games got. And the bigger Spider-Man games got, the better their web-swinging mechanics became, eventually culminating in what could end up being the best Spidey game ever made, Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
Going off the excellent groundwork already laid by its predecessor, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is guaranteed to have great web-swinging from the get-go. But with a few little improvements and refinements, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 could easily feature the best traversal system of any superhero video game. And with one improvement that's been confirmed, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is already destined to solve one issue that's plagued every open-world Spider-Man game ever made.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2's Web Wings Will Make Central Park a Breeze to Traverse
Filled with tall skyscrapers and plenty of rooftop structures to launch off, New York City is the perfect setting for Spider-Man's abilities, and this has been seen time and time again across Spider-Man video games. But New York City isn't perfect, and there's one large stretch of the city that poses a constant problem in just about any Spidey game: Central Park.
A long rectangular section in the very heart of New York City, Central Park in real life is a gorgeous stretch of land that provides some much-needed greenery to the otherwise completely industrial landscape. But while Central Park's beauty carries over to the world of Spider-Man video games, its sights are about all it's good for. With Central Park consisting mostly of low trees and lampposts, the area poses a unique challenge for Spider-Man games, with most web-swinging mechanics not working all that well with the lower terrain.
In the vast majority of open-world Spider-Man games, including titles like Spider-Man 2 2004 and its sequel Spider-Man 3, the only way to traverse Central Park is by web-zipping across it. This usually takes a ridiculously long time, looks absurd, and doesn't feel good at all. In these past Spidey titles, players usually end up avoiding Central Park altogether, choosing to instead swing around its outskirts. This feels like a waste of everyone's time, including the developers who had to painstakingly recreate the area in-game.
Marvel's Spider-Man features a slightly better version of Central Park, offering a compromise that does let players swing through the park, but albeit a little awkwardly. The trees and scenery objects in Marvel's Spider-Man's Central Park require some finicky timing on the player's part to web swing through, forcing them to keep under the tree line enough so that they can continue swinging, but stay above the terrain just below it in order to keep the momentum going.
Thankfully, it seems as though Marvel's Spider-Man 2 might solve this long-running issue with one quick and rewarding swoop. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is set to bring a number of new traversal mechanics to the table, and one of the most anticipated additions is the sequel's Web Wings. Shared between Peter and Miles, these Web Wings let players glide through the air, and the presence of wind tunnels can carry them across the city with ease. Along with the new Super Slingshot mechanic, these Web Wings should make traversing Marvel's Spider-Man 2's Central Park an absolute breeze, potentially even letting players cross the whole area with one button press.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches on October 20 for PlayStation 5.
