Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, developed by Insomniac Games for the PS5 in 2023, swings in as the second chapter of the beloved Spider-Man reboot, picking up about a year after the first game’s DLC. For me, Spider-Man’s appeal lies in his humanity—balancing superhero feats with everyday struggles—and this sequel captures that essence beautifully. With Peter Parker and Miles Morales sharing the spotlight, the game spins a spiderweb of compassion and community. Image: Insomniac Games via IGDB

The game shines in capturing the humanity of both Spider-Men by having them balance the daily struggles with their heroic antics. As early as in the game’s opening sequence, Peter and Miles are forced to juggle a major villain threat while trying to keep up with their job and school goals. These little slices of spider-life, but also regular New York life later on in the side content, is where I feel Spider-Man 2 is at its best. The game’s heart lies in the side content, like when Peter goes to help out a budding photographer, which sets him off on a flashback that shows him rushing to meet The Daily Bugle’s J Jonah Jameson, but still stopping to help a bullied kid while risking his own goals. Tying all of this together is the one common thread, captured by Harry Osborn’s beautiful quote: “Let’s heal the world, Pete!”. Echoed many times across the story, it represents everything; from villains trying to rebuild rather than destroy, to just helping out the little guy, the quote permeates through every layer.

One particular questline that struck me with how it perverts the “heal the world” mantra is the Cult of the Flame one. While the means are fire and destruction, the cult’s motive is cleansing the world of the unworthy, thus “healing” it by that plague that blights it. It’s another reminder of how intentionally the theme is woven into the entire game, even in its darker elements. Meanwhile, while Pete is out chasing the cult, Miles gets busy with debugging Mysterio’s new attractions, the Mysteriums, and helping him rebuild after prison.

Layering the theme even more, Harry Osborn returns from his “trip in Europe”, miraculously healed from his life threatening disease, and pushes “heal the world” into a new realm. Through his return, Peter gets the job of his dreams, we as players get new activities to do, and all seems well. Eventually a darker presence slowly unravels the theme and twists it into a more evil version of itself. Image: Insomniac Games via IGDB

While Harry’s arc builds, New York is turned into more and more of a hunting ground, with our other villain doing his villainous things. Kraven, The Hunter (duh) is the apex predator and is searching for the ultimate prey. Driven by a personal struggle that almost manages to make him seem human, he hunts for the heads of NYC’s finest villainy, but that’s far from noble a goal. Overall he is a formidable bad guy with a complex narrative around him, mixing well into the broader story and helping it move further along without intruding upon the themes. Kraven’s hunt drives the narrative on its own, but the story’s pacing adds its own levels of intensity. The first half of the game goes mostly as you’d expect. It begins with (re)introducing our characters, setting up plotlines, and it leans on a slower pace. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its fast-paced, “gotta do this or the world ends” moments of course, but it’s got a mostly steady cadence that’s easy to follow without getting boring and leaving you itching for some action. Upon reaching the middle parts of the game you should have a lot of traversal and combat options unlocked, so the events that happen have more liberty to be grander, more critical and just outright crazy. This is roughly when Peter gains a new set of powers, and they come with their own consequences that both Spiders end up having to deal with. Kraven’s presence throughout this part of the game emboldens quite a bit, so the gameplay elements try to reflect that: New York gets infested by outposts, robotic birds are hunting seemingly innocent civillians, so it’s the Spiders’s job to bring back order and begin hunting the hunter. Image: Insomniac Games via IGDB

As we start moving on to the final third, we’re introduced to a new threat and the story picks up its pace A LOT. The events that follow suit are amplified by an extreme sense of urgency, so much that it made me feel like I’m slacking off by doing side-stuff. My main gripe with this part of the story is that it felt maybe a little rushed. New villain gets underwhelming screen time, and all the events happen fast enough that they end up losing a bit of their weight. While this part of the story might have been rushed due to development issues, it still lends an interesting type of vitality to everything our protagonists do in the acts.

Good writing can’t carry a video game on its own–it needs a good cast of voice actors too. The cast in this one is remarkable. No line felt out of place, and that’s an achievement on both the writing team’s and the voice actors’s sides. This may be a comfortable take, but one performance stood out to me especially, and that was Spider-Man-Peter. Yuri Lowenthal delivers an absolutely stellar performance, bouncing between Peter Parker’s happy and determined attitude with his darker self, forming one cohesive character. Image: Insomniac Games via IGDB

Obviously a video game is also not a video game without some kind of gameplay. Blasting through the obvious as this is a sequel, the web swinging is incredible. It’s better compared to the first one actually, with settings allowing you to increase the effects of physics on the swinging, making it more difficult but all the more realistic in the process. Web-wings, IRL known as a wingsuit, are a super fun addition to the traversal, so fun that I think I spent most of my time traveling trying to fly as close to the streets without triggering a landing.

On the combat side of things, stealth gets a bit of an upgrade, and I love stealth. The upgrade is that it’s now a viable way to fully finish a mission. One glaring issue I had with the previous instalment is that even if you never got detected, reinforcements would arrive and you had to fight those out in the open. That has been fully fixed here. If you stealth a mission, it just ends, no reinforcements. The removal of one gadget from the first game that was a bit too powerful for stealth, the trip mine, makes stealth quite a bit more difficult, which only increases the satisfaction you get when you finish a mission while avoiding detection.

The rest of the combat doesn’t need too much explaining. Pretty run-of-the-mill fighting: regular punches, kicks, dodges and parries, and web based moves. To spice things up you of course have some pretty fun combo moves, some of which can be done at any time, but the more fun ones are locked behind contextual dependencies. Kicking an enemy up into the air enables them to be knocked back down, or even bounced off the ground back into the air, while getting an enemy near a wall enables you to deliver a furious onslaught of kicks to their helpless self. Topping it all off are both Spider-Men’s special moves, which interestingly enough, change and evolve as the game progresses, making combat pretty varied despite its simplistic roots. Image: Insomniac Games via IGDB

In summary, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a worthy sequel to its 2018 predecessor. It builds on top of everything the first game established, while carefully removing some elements to allow for some breathing room without diminishing on the fun. Combat is tight and engaging, the storyline is rich and cohesive with character progressions that make sense and even feel relatable. It’s all packed in a tightly woven web (excuse the pun) that offers a video game which does not overstay its welcome and respects your time and energy. This game, alongside its predecessor, are the only two games I’ve ever spent the time to 100% clear, which is a testament to their quality.