Highlights

  • Side quests in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 offer memorable content like discovering Chameleon's hideout or earning an Easter egg with the Flame cult leader's alias.
  • Yuri Watanabe in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 becomes a kusarigama-wielding vigilante with ties to Cletus Kasady out of nowhere.
  • Insomniac must have Yuri there to help battle Carnage now if it wants to keep her vital to that subplot, whether that is in a Venom half-sequel, Marvel's Spider-Man 3, or elsewhere.

Not unlike Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a lot of the most memorable content in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 comes from optional side quests. These optional quests are where players can discover the Chameleon’s hideout, find closure on Sandman’s empathetic arc, or earn a huge Easter egg reference with the Flame cult leader’s Cletus Kasady alias in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, for example. The Flame questline is particularly interesting as it ropes a new enemy faction into the mix as well as a new companion character whom Marvel’s Spider-Man players will know well.

Yuri Watanabe was put through an emotional wringer in Marvel’s Spider-Man’s DLC and came back as an entirely new character in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Somehow and for some reason she decided she needed a kusarigama and could perform great acrobatic feats on the level of Spider-Man. Black Cat isn’t exempt from such criticism in how she’s able to not only keep up with Spider-Man’s pace but exceed it, either, and yet the popular Doctor Strange side quest was fleeting. Meanwhile, Yuri’s Wraith seems like a storytelling vehicle for Carnage to be teased more than anything.

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Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Carnage Side Quest is Worse for Having Yuri Tag Along

Yuri’s path to vengeance was catalyzed by Hammerhead in Marvel’s Spider-Man’s City That Never Sleeps DLC, but Yuri and Cletus have apparently had a history together. Cletus was running another cult that Yuri thwarted when she was a cop, though Cletus managed to get away. Yuri tells Peter Parker about how sociopathic Cletus is, demonstrating that their history is more storied than it appears, which seems highly convenient given the fact that Yuri was sarcastic and nonchalant in Marvel’s Spider-Man.

Insomniac likely hadn’t even conceived Yuri and Cletus’ connection until Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 , and if anything it should’ve been Cletus who caused her enough trauma to provoke her into becoming Wraith so that her involvement in the sequel didn’t seem as forced.

Still, it isn’t inherently a poor way of looping Yuri back into the narrative if Insomniac was intent on reprising her with this vigilante persona. Indeed, it’s great to have a unique companion NPC fighting alongside Spider-Man in the Flame’s encounters, too, let alone a full-fledged boss fight against her (as if Yuri could hope to beat Peter, who’s wielding the symbiote no less).

Instead, the most consequential issue with Yuri’s role in this side quest is the quest’s aftermath and what it means for every character involved. Because Insomniac made Yuri so intimately interconnected in the Flame side quest, it will now feel unsatisfactory if she’s not around when Cletus rears his head again.

No Matter How Epic or High-Stakes, Carnage’s Arc Can’t Abandon Yuri

Insomniac is going to need to show a ton of restraint if it’s going to have a rumored Venom half-sequel that doesn’t find a way to feature Carnage with Cletus as its host. It’d be too good to be true in this case—a playable Venom fighting Carnage as its antagonist—even if Insomniac then has to find some way to shove Cletus into that half-sequel’s already truncated narrative.

That said, withholding Carnage until Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 releases would still come with its own problems to solve. Spider-Man will be ready to go up against Cletus and has more than enough experience battling symbiotes at this point (not to mention he’s now potentially permanently bonded to one) and yet if Yuri isn’t part of that conflict it will seem wholly undercooked.

Yuri now needs to play as vital of a role as she did in the Flame quest whenever Cletus reappears because there won’t be an adequate resolution to either of their arcs otherwise. Fighting Spider-Man one-on-one was one thing, but expecting her to stand any chance against a murderous psychopath equipped with his own symbiote is absurd.

Insomniac needs to sleep in the bed it’s made and incorporate her as confidently as it did in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s story, even if that means she’s there battling Carnage alongside Spider-Man, and that may not be as gratifying as the superpowered Spider-Men taking him on alone. If this is the story Insomniac wants to tell, it can’t rescind or demote Yuri’s role for anything.