DEVELOPER: Insomniac Games

PUBLISHER: Sony Computer Entertainment

REVIEWED ON: PlayStation 5 from a copy purchased by the author.

Insomniac Games have always had a track record of producing high-quality software even before they were officially acquired by Sony, but now as a member of PlayStation Studios, they’re easily the companies greatest asset. Within this generation alone, they’ve already shipped a PlayStation 5 console exclusive with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart plus the cross-generational title Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales which itself included a full remaster of Insomniac’s first Spider-Man outing in select editions.

The pressure was on then for Insomniac to deliver with the anticipated sequel, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, which was announced to be in development towards the fall of 2021. Like both Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales before it, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is another exquisitely produced big-budget superhero action title that will assuredly meet or exceed the expectations for lovers of Insomniac’s previous collaboration with Marvel.

With this being the third Spider-Man title from Insomniac though, it’s hard not to feel a sense of familiarity even as new mechanics are introduced to shake up the established formula. While the story is terrifically acted and will easily compel you to keep your console powered on even into the late hours of the evening, the pacing of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 can feel off, especially as it accelerates towards its grand climax.

The Spider-Men, Peter Parker and Miles Morales, are both struggling in their personal lives. Peter’s extracurricular activities keep him from holding a steady job and building a life for himself while Miles is trying to determine who he is beyond a costumed crime fighter as he prepares to head off to college. Both are tested further as a new threat, Kraven the Hunter, arrives in Manhattan seeking the hunt will define his life, all the while Peter’s future becomes more uncertain when his best friend, Harry Osborn, once again enters his life.

Yuri Lowenthal continues to prove that he was an excellent choice to play Peter Parker as here he effortlessly juggles playing Spider-Man, Peter through various choices of his life, and a darker take on both sides of the coin when he dons the alien black suit costume which was been a focal point of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 marketing. Similarly, Nadji Jeter crushes the role of Miles Morales in how he builds up the character based on what has happened in Insomniac’s first Spider-Man game and the Miles centric spin-off. It goes without saying that Tony Todd is inspired casting to take on the role of Venom once he eventually shows up to menace our protagonists.

Some of the choices made in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2‘s narrative are sure to divide purists who know the black suit story from either the comics, a cartoon or another game, but other changes – which I won’t spoil here – are genuinely pleasing and welcome surprises. What is a disappointment however is Insomniac’s lack of credit to the people it borrows some of its story beats from. After 2021’s Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy credited writers, artists and even issue numbers for things like bonus costumes, such omissions here are completely unacceptable.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 gives you a lot of freedom in that you can choose to play as either character unless story progression dictates one of the other. Miles has some great missions focusing on his school at Brooklyn Visions and the supporting cast from Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, but at times his sections can feel like padding at times given how much of the game is laser focused on Peter, Harry and the symbiote. That’s not to say that what happens to Miles is uninteresting, you’ll just want to get back to Peter as that’s where the main focus of the game is. Everything does culminate in a pay off that unites both threads, but the journey to get there feels a bit bumpy.

Insomniac’s fully numbered sequel has taken a lot to heart regarding how bloated Marvel’s Spider-Man could be at times with its excessive bases and street crimes compared to the much leaner Miles Morales. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 does feature a map that starts to have icons sprinkled on it, but they’re fewer in number so the overall flow is more Miles Morales than Marvel’s Spider-Man.

While there’s still a hefty amount of side content, some secondary objectives will go down as being the best parts of the game and show just how much the development team love Spider-Man and get what has made him in all his incarnations so iconic. As the primary thread goes however, some things that happen in the final act accelerate a little too quickly, not so much that it feels like something was left on the cutting room floor mind you, it just doesn’t match the pacing given to the first and second acts.

As this is now Insomniac’s third rodeo with these characters, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will immediately feel familiar to those who poured dozens of hours into the games that came before it. Leaping, swinging, and zipping around sky scrapers feels just as good as always, and it won’t take you long to build up your old muscle memory. As the map has been expanded to include boroughs like Queens, both Spider-Men will find themselves crossing over bodies of water and under bridges, which is where the new web wing mechanic comes in.

The web wings are never meant to supplant your swinging, but rather give you a new tool in your tool box to expand how you get around. Vents and currents, some of which will remind you of Superman’s adventure on the Nintendo 64 as you venture though rings, provide you with plenty of options to get from one end of the map to the other and look cool while doing so. There’s fast travel that can be unlocked, but you’ll rarely use it as it takes mere moments to get to where you’re going as you combine all of your moves into long, creative combo chains.

The fundamentals of combat have largely gone unchanged, which isn’t a bad thing as bouncing between crooks, juggling enemies in the air, and building huge combos with your gadgets is a solid foundation that doesn’t need to be changed. You have fewer gadgets this time around, which sounds like a downgrade, but it streamlines the play control. You no longer have to pause combat to access a weapon wheel of tools, you just have to pull a trigger and hit the corresponding face button to do things like pull a group of enemies together and shoot them into the air with ease.

The same functionality applies to the new tricks that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has up its sleeve to spice up combat. Depressing another trigger has Miles using his electrical abilities which are a mixture of old and new, while Peter gains the use of four new mechanical arms. Both are similar enough that it makes swapping between the two seamless while also giving them they’re own unique style. The additional of the black suit refreshes Peter’s move set further as he can use his alien half to handle crowds with ease and dish out devastating damage.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has some fantastic set pieces, it even opens with a memorable one that was revealed too close to launch, that pushes what the PlayStation 5 can do and stand out more than the fights with the Sinister Six is Marvel’s Spider-Man that were a little soo similar to one another. As spectacular as they are though, they can overstay their welcome a tad too long as major boss fights have you depleting three overly long health bars. Some often have you performing your new parry move which isn’t implemented as elegantly as your other maneuvers where it’s hard to read when you can do it or not.

This doesn’t also just apply to the larger moments, but standard brawls as well. The game establishes an in canon reason as to how Kraven is hiding a massive army in New York, but during some fights the numbers you come up against feels excessive. It’s hard not to think back to something like Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune after you pulled off what felt like your 1,000th headshot. You can mix up how you choose to engage crowds with your regular attacks, gadgets and character abilities, but there’s so much fighting stuffed into Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 that it can start to become routine, or worse boring.

Peter and Miles have a new tool in their stealth arsenal as they can now essentially make an unlimited amount of tight ropes to walk on to get the drop on enemies from above. Sneaking feels like it takes a backseat in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 as it features no pure stealth sections where you must complete them while remaining unseen. If you want to take the silent route you can, but setting up takedowns often takes longer than just diving in head first and engaging a crowed with fisticuffs. By the time credits roll, you may just even forget that Miles has the ability to disappear because you’ll use it so infrequently.

The Mary Jane and Miles missions in Marvel’s Spider-Man were a way to break up the pace between all the swinging and fighting, but they were somewhat of a drag to go through when starting a New Game+ file. Mary Jane makes a return here as a playable character, but the times you control her are few in number and thankfully the sequences go by much faster as you can now stun enemies with a taser instead of having to lure them away with distractions. Easily one of the most memorable parts of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has you in control of Mary Jane that’s framed like a horror movie that you just have to experience for yourself.

For the purpose of this review, performance mode was selected over fidelity, but even with moving the slider in that direction, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a stunning game that pushes the PlayStation 5 hardware like no other. The city of New York is teeming with people and traffic, and the reflection off the water as you glide into the island of Manhattan is truly a sight to behold. There’s even a section that’s a nod to what Insomniac did with Rift Apart that has an in universe explanation that you’re sure to enjoy. Performance is something that you should perhaps go to other outlets for a more in-depth analysis, but for the purposes of this review, there were no noticeable hiccups in frame rate or crashes. It should also be noted that I played on a disc and not a digital download.

Insomniac rarely if ever misses, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is another stand out title from them that’s easily worth adding to your PlayStation 5 collection or adding to your holiday wish list. While the story and action sequences could’ve perhaps used a little more fine tuning, the story, traversal, and fundamental combat mechanics combined with your new tools make for a comic book inspired adventure that’s hard to put down. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 leaves plenty on the table for future sequels and spin-offs, and by the end your synapses will be firing on all cylinders thinking about how they’re going to be paid off. Hopefully with Wolverine next in the pipeline, Insomniac can give Spider-Man a short break and come back reinvigorated for future sequels and potential spin-offs.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is available now, exclusively on PlayStation 5