Highlights
- Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will feature three major villains: Kraven the Hunter, The Lizard, and Venom.
- The Green Goblin, one of Spider-Man's most iconic villains, could also make an appearance in the game. Even if he doesn't, he likely will show up later on in Spider-Man 3.
- Insomniac will need to decide whether to portray the Green Goblin as a tech-based villain or a monstrous creature, keeping the game's emphasis on big boss fights in mind.
Right behind Batman, Spider-Man has one of the greatest rogue's galleries in all of comic book history, and Insomniac's own Spidey universe has the world at its feet. A Spidey game on a scale that had never been seen before, Marvel's Spider-Man didn't waste the opportunity to capitalize on some of the Wall-Crawler's best villains, putting the entire Sinister Six in the game along with a few other iconic Spider-Man foes like Shocker and Taskmaster. And from what fans have seen so far, it seems as though Marvel's Spider-Man 2 isn't wasting its opportunity either.
There are currently three big villains confirmed to play a major role in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and those are Kraven the Hunter, The Lizard, and the big bad Venom himself. While these three villains are sure to take up the vast majority of Spider-Man 2's main story runtime, there's sure to be another handful of iconic Spidey villains sprinkled in for good measure, and if Insomniac finally decides to pull the trigger and put Green Goblin in the series, then it's going to need to make one big design choice.
Marvel's Spider-Man's Green Goblin Faces One Big Design Choice
Debuting all the way back in 1964, the Green Goblin became an immediate fan-favorite villain, with his unknown identity being a major selling point at the time. Of course, in the almost six decades since his first appearance, the Green Goblin has remained one of the most iconic characters in not only Spider-Man, but the comics medium as a whole. While there have been plenty of villains that have taken on the mantle of Green Goblin over the years, the most common and well-known iteration of the character is Norman Osborn, though even he has two major versions that are drastically different from one another.
By far the most iconic iteration of Norman Osborn's Green Goblin - thanks in no small part to Willem Dafoe's portrayal in the first Raimi Spider-Man movie - is the technology-based version of the villain. This version of the Goblin is usually equipped with some kind of armored bodysuit, along with a high-tech glider and a packed arsenal of pumpkin bombs, razor bats, and drones. But coming in at a close second is the Ultimate version of the Green Goblin, in which the character turns into a literal hulking green goblin monster after a super-soldier experiment goes wrong.
Though he hasn't been confirmed to make an appearance in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, it's only a matter of time before the Green Goblin debuts in Insomniac's Spider-Man universe in at least some capacity, though Insomniac will first need to decide which version of the Goblin it's going for. The most likely version of the Green Goblin to appear in the Marvel's Spider-Man series is a tech-based one, with the character's purple hand grenades already being teased in the very first game in Norman Osborn's office.
However, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 seems to be doubling down on big monster boss fights. From the trailers released so far, it seems as though players will be engaging in a large-scale chase through New York City at least once during the course of Spider-Man 2, where they'll attempt to capture The Lizard. It also seems likely that a fight against an intimidatingly large Venom is also on the cards. So, if Insomniac wanted to continue this trend, it could use the monstrous Ultimate version of the Green Goblin, though having too many big creature fights might end up feeling rather repetitive. For the sake of variety and iconicity, it would be much better for Insomniac's version of the Green Goblin to be a tech-based foe.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be released October 20 exclusively for PS5.
