2018’s Spider Man was a critical and commercial hit, providing players with the best web-slinging experience in over a decade. A sequel was inevitable, and Marvel’s Spider Man 2 will try to continue the story as Peter Parker fights to keep his city safe, and Miles Morales develops his skills as the second Spider-Man. Promotional material has kept many of the intricate storylines hidden, and while there are plot points that emerge in the first game that will be explored in the follow-up, the Insomniac-developed project has the potential to do something different, refining the franchise to produce something great.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales was a fantastic step towards something special, but a numbered sequel raises expectations. The first game was sublime, but there were a few limitations that can be explored and fixed to make the next title the determining factor Spider Man experience. Spider-Man is synonymous with New York City because so many of his acts take place in the Manhattan skyline. The Big Apple is more than just the sum of one island, though, and while the franchise has so far beautifully recreated the most famous of the five distinct boroughs, Marvel’s Spider Man 2 should bring players more of New York than before.
Spider-Man’s Over-Dependence on Manhattan
Manhattan’s awe-inspiring architecture and fast-paced energy are known by millions. Even those who have never walked through the East Village, stopped at the Blockhouse in Central Park, or spent time shopping on Fifth Avenue are somewhat familiar with the atmosphere of Manhattan, and Insomniac did so well to revisit it. in a way that felt accurate, yet fun to traverse. Spider-Man: Miles Morales changed the fabric of the city, albeit a little, and sprinkled it with a layer of snow like Spider-Man: Miles Morales was recorded over the Christmas period.
Both from Insomniac’s Spider Man titles did so well to recreate the borough, but the sense that the city has so much more to offer always lingered. It was annoying to see the Brooklyn or Williamsburg Bridge in the distance, knowing they led to an area of New York that could not be explored. As Marvel’s Spider Man 2 will attempt to surpass the foregoing, it may be key to making the trip to New York’s easternmost areas a viable option for exploration, especially as a third installment in the franchise locked to Manhattan, the series is ecologically stagnant .
Brooklyn and Queens offer plenty of settings
New York City is more than the sum of its parts, but there’s so much that brings Brooklyn and Queens into the city’s vibe, making them essential to experience when booking a trip to The Big Apple. From the youthful character of Williamsburg and the pretty streets of Park Slope in the former, or the culturally diverse Astoria and the residential and affluent Forest Hills, Queens, eastern New York City feels very different from its Manhattan counterpart. This would make it a great shot in the coming Spider Man project because it would go further to make the sequel even more accurate for real life while adding some much-needed space.
Set almost entirely in Harlem, Miles Morales’ 2020 story kept the story feeling fresh and did a good job of giving the story a sense of geographic identity. It highlighted an area of Manhattan that may not be known to everyone, and while Brooklyn and Queens have neighborhoods that are more run-down than others, their inclusion would do well to bring a new flavor to a city that’s so much more than people. can believe at first.
New York’s size is a strength
The best of Spider Man may have been his move, because web-slinging through the streets, pausing only to stop sporadic crimes, was a beautiful and such fun thing to do. However, it often felt like the great gameplay was hampered by the size of the map itself. While Spider Man is certainly not small, it is not as big as other Sony first party titles like Ghost of Tsushima and Horizon Zero Dawn. As such, it felt more intimate in design, which served the story well, but after a handful of hours whizzing past the same monuments and locations, it can get tiresome quickly.
Adding more size would give players more reason to enjoy swinging the web, and as long as it gets the same attention to detail as the Manhattan of the first two games, Marvel’s Spider Man 2 will be all the better for it. Implementing more side activities and main missions that take place in Brooklyn and Queens would bring Insomniac’s franchise more in line with the size of other AAA games in Sony’s first party. New York City’s five boroughs make up one of the largest cities on Earth, and imitating a fraction of its impressive scope would offer geographic diversity and put more emphasis on traversal, which is where the series excels most.
Spider-Man is quintessentially New York
Like Batman’s intense relationship with Gotham City, Peter Parker is forever tied to New York, narratively and culturally. It feels like a fish in water when he operates elsewhere, and Insomniac’s take on the beloved wall-crawler does justice to the city he calls home. However, it only brings in a fifth of the NYC magic, and including Queens and Brooklyn would go a long way in making the open world that much more memorable this time around.
There have been two Spider Man games from Insomniac Games and they both have charm but take advantage of the same area, save for a few subtle differences. It would be a glaring omission to leave Manhattan entirely, but spending more time across the East River could do wonders for the sandbox experience fans came to love in 2018 and 2020.
Marvel’s Spider Man 2 is slated to launch in 2023 for PS5.
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