Insomniac Games was on hand to talk about Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 on this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. Among other things, they talked about the big setting of the game, and why it really revolves around Kraven.
In Insomniac’s version of the Spider-Man universe, Kraven gets a grim real life update, as instead of a lone wolf survivalist type, this Kraven seems to be a millionaire high tech private army type. It isn’t hard to see Wagner Group or SilverCorp USA as potential inspiration for this version of Kraven, though we doubt Insomniac will ever admit that.
They describe Kraven as the ‘catalyst’ of the events of the game, which isn’t that far off from the last game, Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Kraven has been going around the world looking for things to hunt during the events of the previous games, but he has been aware of all the action happening in New York this whole time.
By the time of the game, he decides he will finally be going to New York to check out the action there.
Insomniac doesn’t go into more detail here, but they then point out that Kraven’s presence also gets the other super-villains to surface, namely, Lizard and Venom.
This game’s version of Lizard doesn’t make his human alter ego, Curt Connors, a teacher of Peter Parker’s. Technically, he also appeared in the first Marvel’s Spider-Man, but only as a side note.
This Curt had been partially cured by Peter, as he didn’t want to turn into the Lizard. It’s possible that Kraven’s meddling in New York was intended to bring out the baddies that he could hunt, and that’s what he intended to do with Curt.
Venom isn’t Venom throughout the whole game game, as we know. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will reexamine the Alien Costume Saga, one of those classic storylines that has to be reexamined every time a new show or video game decides to use Venom.
Kraven’s role in the symbiote’s appearance isn’t clear yet. But if Kraven didn’t bring the symbiote to New York himself, he could be creating the chaos that gives the symbiote to assert its lethality towards the world.
Could this be the most powerful version of Kraven we’ve seen yet? Given how Kraven’s most famous storyline, The Last Hunt played out, we know that Kraven has already proven himself superior to Spidey. Insomniac seems to have something truly special planned for this villain, that might even make him rival Venom.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be releasing on October 20, 2023, exclusively on PlayStation 5. You can watch the highlights of said SDCC 2023 panel below.
