Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 | PS5 Review

Insomniac just gets Spider-Man. More than any adaptation since the Raimi films, their interpretation feels like coming home. The emphasis on Peter and his personal struggles over the exciting superheroism of Spidey just feels right. But does the same formula hold up for the third time in five years?

Time to Save the Day

We pick up a bit of time after the events of Spider-Man: Miles Morales, and Harry Osborn has come back from his supposed European vacation. Peter is obviously very thrilled by this, but it comes with unexpected consequences, both good and bad. Their relationship is very much the focus of Peter’s emotional journey, but he’s not our only Spider-Man.

Miles is dealing with the fallout from his standalone game, having to balance a mom that knows his secret and the pressures of school life. There’s also the Martin Li of it all, and the unfinished business between him and Miles. Much like Peter’s story, Miles’ is focused on his personal journey over that of Spider-Man, and the game is all the better for it.

Time to Save the City

Both characters are balanced fairly well, though Peter perhaps has more of the screen time in the main story. Nevertheless, each character has a compelling emotional journey both separate from one another and together. It’s a commendable effort to balance both characters, and while it’s certainly not as perfect as other games with multiple leads, I felt compelled to routinely switch between the two.

The Spider-Men, together, are faced with the unknown terror of Kraven the Hunter coming to town. It’s a new spin on the character, for better or worse. I can’t say I was personally thrilled that the jungle hunter of the comics was basically turned into the owner of a Private Military Corporation. He largely feels like a means to an end in buying time before Venom and providing endless goons to fight, and becomes forgettable because of that.

It’s a formula that should be very familiar to fans of the first game, but unlike Mister Negative buying time before Doc Ock showed up in Spider-Man, Kraven just can’t carry the weight. Mister Negative had a compelling and emotional story all his own, and his relationship with the Parkers was compelling. Kraven feels disjointed from the main story, and his motivation is frankly boring. The worst offense is that the story tries to build him up as a threat more powerful than the Sinister Six, but all of the events that would portray this happen off-screen. It’s hard to feel threatened by a villain who you’re told is a massive threat, but never shown to be.

Time to Save the World

Obviously, Venom is the real star of the show here. Insomniac has been very clear ever since the first game that Harry Osborn would be Venom, and it works surprisingly well in premise. The buildup to that moment throughout the game is expertly done, with the tension of inevitability being palpable. They really sell you on the bond of Peter and Harry before things go bad, and you really root for them. I won’t go into much detail, but all of the story regarding Peter getting the symbiote suit is probably the best part of the game. Peter can be genuinely scary in these sections, and Yuri Lowethal delivers one of the best performances of his career.

 

Unfortunately, when Venom shows up, Spider-Man 2 drops precipitously in quality. The slow and measured story that had been well-paced, even if Kraven disappoints, races to its conclusion at a frantic speed. Venom’s motivations shifting focus from revenge to world domination happens in the span of minutes, and I was seriously confused at first. For the character that’s plastered over every piece of marketing, you will be left mouth agape with how little he’s on screen. For a character with so many adoring fans, from a studio that absolutely nailed Doctor Octopus, it’s unthinkable just how badly the ball is dropped with Venom. A total disappointment.

Time to Heal the World

That’s enough talk of the story, as there’s plenty of gameplay to discuss. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the combat in Spider-Man 2 is nearly identical to the past two games. One fantastic improvement is the simplification of Spider-Man’s gadgets. Gone is the obnoxious weapon wheel that totally ruined the flow of combat, instead replaced with button shortcuts. It works so much better than the other games, and keeps you engaged in the fight. Blissfully, there are only four gadgets in total, with simple and compelling upgrades. There are also a set of abilities exclusive to either Spider-Man, and these too are restrained in a way that makes them easy and fun to engage with.

Swinging is what it’s all about with New York’s wallcrawlers, and it’s better here than ever before. Since Spider-Man 2 is exclusive to the PS5, it can use the console’s SSD to load the city incredibly fast. What this means is that web-swinging is faster than ever before. You’re zipping by with such speed and finesse, you’ll be hard-pressed to ever use the easy fast travel system. I never wanted to stop swinging, and thanks to new gameplay settings, you can make web traversal as complicated or streamlined as you want. It’s up to each player how much they want to account for physics or not, and this really is the best answer. It works for everyone.

The big traversal addition is the web wings. I found these to totally suck. They control well enough and everything, but they completely remove you from the fantasy of being Spider-Man. They’re supposedly used for gliding, but they’re barely restrictive at all. There are so many wind lifts to raise you and wind tunnels to speed you along, you’re essentially flying. It makes very little sense to be included in a Spider-Man game at all, and I struggle to think why anyone would want them here.

Thank You, Spider-Man

Side quests are much improved over the other games. Outside the singular Tombstone quest, the original Spider-Man game had nothing but collectable chains. Those are present in Spider-Man 2, as well, but there’s also much more sophisticated narrative quests. Whether it’s Peter working alongside an old ally to investigate a cult, or Miles helping a couple kids out at school, these are always compelling. They often focus on the “friendly neighborhood” aspect of the character, and it just feels wonderful to be helping your fellow New Yorkers.

All in all, if you liked the other games, you will like Spider-Man 2. The gameplay is improved in nearly every way, from combat to side quests. Even with its two central villains being letdowns , and a severely disappointing and rushed third act, there’s still a lot of worthwhile story to dive into. Insomniac still knows the right beats to hit for an emotional Spider-Man story, and I look forward to them concluding their take on the character with the Spider-Man 3 they clearly set up.

To hear me talk more about Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, be sure to listen to the October 25 episode of The Gaming Outsider podcast around the 1:09:12 time stamp.

This review is based on a purchased PlayStation 5 copy of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. It is exclusive to this platform.