Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is the latest and biggest video game launch in 2023, a year that’s been chock full-of the splashiest releases. It comes on the heels of absolutely phenomenal Spider-Man games that have been Marvel video games’ saving grace to some degree. Shiny, glossy, super-polished with sleek combat, Miles Morales was a great showcase of the PlayStation 5’s capabilities and Marvel’s Spider-Man also racked up awards for game of the year and best design.
Launching exclusively on the PlayStation 5, Spider-Man 2 promises double the protagonists and way more access to New York City. Just like the previous entries, you can swing across skyscrapers, shoot webs to trap enemies, and face off against legendary bosses from comic book lore. Coming just three years after Miles Morales, Spider-Man 2 has had plenty of hype surrounding it and CNN Underscored took a look at whether it lives up to high expectations.
Marvel fans will find lots to love about Spider-Man 2's breathtaking visuals and exciting web-slinging gameplay, though its focus on two protagonists left us wanting more from the story.
What we liked about it
Extreme polish and budget
Right off the bat, you can tell this is a Marvel video game, and one backed by the full force of Sony. Whereas some video games might shy away from adding that extra action sequence or letting you shift perspectives so many times and see new camera angles, Spider-Man 2 has the budget to go there.
Nearly every moment of this game is eye-catching and sleek. To that end, the outfits are to die for. While some video games crowd out the main character with lots of questionable clothing choices, Spider-Man 2 is not that way. Players are likely to spend dozens of hours web-slinging across the city in game not just to prepare for the final boss fight, but also to unlock cool costumes for some debonair fashion. Some of these outfits are even a nod to looks seen in Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.
Without giving any major narratives or spoilers away, all I will say is that Spider-Man 2 picked a fascinating villain to explore, with intriguing powers and a fun backstory. In fact, you could say that the villain steals the show. We already see from trailers that Venom will feature heavily in Spider-Man 2. Just imagine PlayStation taking a level of polish to Venom and the game having a similarly gripping narrative as the movies.
Everything you like about Marvel in a game
If you’re a diehard Marvel fan, you may naturally gravitate toward Spider-Man 2. The opening sequence is jam-packed with explosions and absolutely wild action, as you exchange blows with a colossal supervillain and save people in crushed vehicles, as Spider-Man typically does. It feels like Insomniac and PlayStation are just getting better at these action sequences per every new release. Like the opening to the newest God of War, Spider-Man 2’s introduction blends storytelling with player interaction and both intrigues players and demands their rapt attention. I was on the edge of my seat trying to keep up with the flow of events.
Spider-Man 2 in many ways pushes the envelope on the role-playing realism of feeling like you are a true Marvel hero. The game balances a mix of showing characters moving through the world through scenes of exposition and riveting fighting game play where you have to button mash. This time, Peter and Miles have the skills they gained in the previous games and then some. During downtime in between the main story beats, you can complete side quests as either Peter or Miles and freely switch between the two protagonists.
Without giving too much away, some of the most fun can be had by trying out the newest, most monstrous powers, which make full use of the PlayStation 5 controller’s rumbles and sound effects. It’s also extremely interesting to play this game right after sinking dozens of hours into Bethesda’s Starfield, which, in contrast, is a game that features nearly zero cutscenes, with characters speaking to you inside its massive world.
Marvel games, especially Spider-Man games, feel like Marvel films with all the polish, glam and excitement that they command. That being said, just like Marvel films, Spider-Man 2 possesses a number of shortcomings that became more apparent the more I played.
What we didn’t like about it
All the flaws of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
After “Avengers: Endgame” released in theaters in 2019, a common critique of Marvel films and TV shows has been that they feel anti-climatic. Don’t get me wrong, there are a number of great Marvel properties that have still hit the spot, such as “WandaVision,” “Loki” and Shang-Chi, but the high stakes and momentum that the franchise was building towards with Endgame have been sorely missed.
The Spider-Man and Miles Morales games were both origin stories that established why we should care about these characters. Though Miles Morales was criticized for having a shorter storyline, its narrative was compact but stunning. Both games revived player enthusiasm for Marvel games, as did the mobile hit Marvel Snap.
But now in Spider-Man 2, Peter Parker and Miles Morales are both playable characters and they have to share the spotlight. The effect is that Spider-Man 2 feels like jumbled storytelling, similar to some of the criticism aimed at “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness.” You can feel the storytelling pressures that the developers were facing. They need to introduce so many characters and highlight so many backstories at once, while building in excuses for why you can’t control Peter and Miles continuously throughout the game and bring them to fight enemies together. Sometimes Miles has schoolwork, other times, Peter has to worry about his mortgage. Despite all of the baggage, Spider-Man 2 still largely works as a story, but it’s not nearly as compelling and memorable as Miles Morales, in my book. It feels like a repeat of the problems that the MCU has been plagued with in recent years. There’s so much that needs to be set up for the next series of Marvel video games, and there’s so much that needs to be connected and brought back from the previous games. In some ways, Spider-Man 2 feels like extended downloadable content to the previous games. The 2 in the name weighs heavily on the whole experience.
I don’t think Spider-Man 2 truly needed two protagonists. It likely would’ve been a more fun and more emotionally driven game if it had pared things down back to one. The ties between two characters felt like the most honest and sacred part of the game, and I would’ve loved to see it explored even further.
The other issue with having so many characters is that some of them just naturally outshine the others. At points in the game, you can’t control which spider you’re playing as, so I had to sit through scenes with the less interesting guy, biding my time until a more exciting part came along again.
Bottom line
Looking back on my entire playthrough of Spider-Man 2, which took the better part of about three days, where I paced myself exploring New York City and ran through side quests as well, I can identify key moments when I cheered at the game and thought it was amazing. The character development and bromance that I won’t spoil made for some of the most moving and memorable parts. But unfortunately, thanks to how much the game has to shoulder and set up as the next entry in a series of far more to come, these poignant moments don’t get all that much air time.
Instead, I found the later half of the game to feel like a very prolonged series of predictable boss fights. The extensive cast of characters makes Spider-Man 2 feel rather scattered and muddled. The amount of chores and tasks that Miles and Peter do all game long when you’re controlling the other guy starts to make Spider-Man 2 feel like a filler episode of the latest Japanese anime arc. And that just doesn’t make for a positive experience.
My absolute favorite part of the game I can’t spoil, but let’s just say that similar to other Marvel films that were built in service of setting up for future films, Spider-Man 2 sets up for the next slate of Marvel games to be epic. In doing so, it whets our appetites a bit too early, and leaves us wanting.
