During their Paris Games Week press conference yesterday, Sony showed off a brand new trailer for 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man that gave us the most information to unpack than any other trailer for the game thus far: from the first looks at Peter Parker, Aunt May, a tease of Norman Osborn and a new villain in the Shocker. Another character who was also shown off for the first time in the highly anticipated PlayStation exclusive was none other than Mary Jane Watson, and from the trailer, it even looked like she was to make her first ever playable debut in a Spider-Man game; Something Insomniac Games director, Bryan Intihar, confirmed today as fact. Speaking with IGN, Intihar had this to say:

“Yeah!…I can confirm, yes you actually play, at various stages of the game, Mary-Jane.”

When it comes to Mary Jane Watson, most people associate her with being a model/actress, whether that’s from her history in the mainline comics, various animated series, video games, and the first Spider-Man trilogy of films from director Sam Raimi. In the Ultimate Spider-Man comics started by Brian Micheal Bendis in the early 2000’s however, MJ followed a different career path normally associated with Peter Parker: journalism. In Marvel’s Spider-Man, MJ will resemble more of her Ultimate Spider-Man counterpart, and it’s her reporting that gets her tangled up with the villain shown off in nearly all the trailers for the game, Mister Negative. Intihar adds:

“It’s a very different experience to playing as Spider-Man,…and it stays true to her character, in terms of her background that she’s a reporter for the Daily Bugle. It captures that feeling. Also, the other thing for us is that, even though we are creating a superhero world in the fantasy, we thought it’d be interesting to show what it’s like to be a character who doesn’t have superpowers, what it’s like to be that person in a superhero world, and actually control that character. I really like her role in the game, and to put her in a role that maybe we haven’t seen as much. It’s less of a damsel in distress, she’s much more of a capable contributor, a risk-taker in this game.”

Something not seen since 2014’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 from developer Beenox, Spider-Man’s alter ego Peter Parker will also be playable at points:

“I think to give a true Spider-Man experience, Peter’s just as important,…and you saw some of that in the trailer. You also saw that he is playable. We’re not going to talk about what that experience is, but I do think you need to experience being Peter to get the full Spider-Man experience […] and it’s fun.”

VIA IGN