Insomniac revealed in a new interview with Inverse how they wanted all their players to feel the superhero fantasy of being Spider-Man in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Creative director Brian Intihar shares this insight from when they made the first Marvel’s Spider-Man:
“One of the things we set out to do from day one was honor the fact that being Spider-Man is such a fantasy for so many people.
They say anybody can wear the mask, but we want anybody to wear the mask and be good at wearing the mask at the same time. The barrier of entry should be pretty low.”
For Marvel’s Spider-Man, Insomniac overhauled the idea of web-swinging, which had been first explored by Neversoft in the 2000 Spider-Man game for PlayStation, later arriving to Windows, DreamCast, and Nintendo 64. Through the years there had been different interpretations of the mechanic.
Insomniac brought the full package together, making Peter’s swinging as cinematic as it was gameplay. Peter seems to swim as much as he swings in the air, and it isn’t all about swinging across buildings.
Insomniac also thought through making the swinging feel like autopilot for beginner players. In the meantime, more advanced moves, that would allow you to accelerate your velocity even more rapidly, were hiding in plain sight for more skilled players to discover and learn for themselves.
For Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Insomniac reinvented that experience again, this time for the black suit. Game director Ryan Smith explained how they made Peter’s use of symbiote tendrils also feel natural and empowering:
“In combat, how Peter’s able to leverage those symbiote abilities is really about the transformation. He isn’t just leading with a fist. He’s got tentacles, and you can stick enemies to the wall, you can grab a group of enemies and launch them.
It’s an opportunity for putting power out into the gameplay space a little bit differently than we would’ve done before, by interacting with more enemies.”
While most comic book and video game fans think of the black suit as Venom, Peter actually used the suit differently than Eddie Brock did. Much of Eddie’s use of the suit was about taking its abilities into overdrive, but in the classic Black Suit run, Peter would demonstrate ingenuity and cleverness in leveraging the suit’s new abilities in his daily adventures. While the game looks like it will speedrun this storyline to the part where Peter is losing control, it will be interesting to see Insomniac’s take on Peter with the black suit.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be releasing on October 20, 2023 exclusively on the PlayStation 5.
