‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’ Story Trailer Breakdown: Are We Gearing Up for the Game of the Year?

Spider-Man is one of the most popular fictional characters in pop culture, and with such huge popularity, it’s no wonder that Peter Parker was adapted into video games many times throughout history. The first ever Spider-Man video game was released in 1982 on Atari 2600 and Odyssey 2 platforms, and 2000’s ‘Spider-Man’ was the first game featuring the web crawler that was released on PlayStation.

The original ‘Spider-Man’ trilogy starring Tobey Maguire and ‘The Amazing Spider-Man’ duology starring Andrew Garfield have gotten video games based on each of those five movies. Today, we aren’t getting any more video games based on movies, but soon after Tom Holland started his MCU journey in ‘Captain America: Civil War,’ Insomniac Games announced the development of ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man.’

This new original game was released exclusively on PlayStation 4 in September 2018. Two years later, a spin-off sequel ‘Spider-Man: Miles Morales,’ was released on PS4 and PS5, as well as the remastered version of the first game for PS5.

This October, we finally get a full sequel, ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.’ A new story trailer was revealed at the recent San Diego Comic-Con presentation. So, let’s break down the trailer and see what we can expect from the story of one of the year’s most anticipated games. If you haven’t seen it already, you can watch the trailer down below.

First look at Harry Osborn

Just like in the comics, Harry Osborn in Insomniac’s Spider-Man world is depicted as Peter Parker’s best friend. This incarnation of the character inherited Oshtoran Syndrome from his deceased mother. As his condition became critical, his father, Norman, sent him to a stasis chamber to buy enough time to find a proper medical treatment.

Harry didn’t have much of a role in the previous two games, although he was mentioned several times. In the post-credit scene of ‘Spider-Man: Miles Morales,’ Harry is seen in his chamber as the Venom symbiote slowly takes him over. This opens the way for Harry’s appearance in the sequel. He’ll meet his oldest friend again, and we see in the trailer that Peter will introduce him to Miles and the others.

Judging by the mentioned post-credit scene and the upcoming sequel’s trailer, Harry will surely have an important role in the Venom storyline. Peter and Miles are set to face off against two big villains, Kraven the Hunter and Venom, and it feels like the latter will be a lot more personal, particularly because the symbiote will also infect Peter during the game.

Two Spider-Men in action

While two previous games in this franchise featured both Peter and Miles as playable characters in each of their standalone games, this sequel will not finally introduce the concept of playing with two Spider-Men during the story. Some players thought this could mean that the game would feature a co-op gameplay option allowing two players to play with two Spider-Men simultaneously, but that was ultimately denied when developers announced the game as an epic single-player experience.

Both Peter and Miles will have their own personal stories. While Peter will have to deal with his best friend and a new set of villains that arrive in New York City, Miles will seek revenge against Mr. Negative for his role in the death of Miles’ father, Jefferson Davis. Also, Miles will have a key role when it comes to saving Peter once the symbiote possesses him.

New character looks

It’s still unknown how much time has passed since the events of the first two games before the event of the sequel, but what the story trailer showed is that almost every main character was visually changed. Returning characters like Mister Negative, Mary Jane, and Miles Morales, all don a new look in the sequel, at least when you look at their haircuts.

The fans who played the original version of the first game on PS4 know that Peter Parker’s face was heavily changed in the remastered version and in ‘Spider-Man: Miles Morales.’ While that change didn’t sit well with most of the fans, it must be admitted that Peter’s new face looks a lot better in the sequel, presumably because ‘Spider-Man 2’ will be released exclusively on PS5, and the power of the console in terms of graphics will surely be used to its maximum.

New villains

In the original game, Peter Parker had to face many villains. If we look only at the main story, he fought against Kingpin, Vulture, Electro, Scorpion, Rhino, Mister Negative, and his own mentor Otto Octavius, also known as Doctor Octopus. After defeating the Sinister Six in the original game, Peter will now face two new villains in the sequel: Kraven the Hunter and Venom.

Kraven’s story is still unknown, although he’ll follow his comic-accurate objective to fight Spider-Man to prove himself as the greatest hunter who ever lived. And Kraven also has his own militia at his command, as Silver Sable did in the original game, which means there will be a lot of lowlifes to beat.

As for Venom, we know that Harry has some connection to it and that Peter will be a symbiote bearer for some time. The developers previously announced that the game’s Venom wouldn’t be Eddie Brock, which makes this situation even more interesting.

Still, even with these two, we can surely expect many more villains to be featured in either small roles or solely in the game’s side missions. Some of those villains are Black Cat, Taskmaster, and Yuri Watanabe, also known as Wraith.

The ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man’ PlayStation 5 limited edition

Last but not least, the Insomniac at San Diego Comic-Con didn’t reveal only a new trailer but also the first look at a brand-new PlayStation 5 console — Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Limited Edition Bundle. The console features a cover design based on the game and a matching DualSense controller.

The console will be released in both standard and digital editions, so if some gamers didn’t buy PS5 yet, but they’re planning to do it before ‘Spider-Man 2’ comes out, this might be a perfect choice.

‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’ is set to be released on October 20, 2023. Pre-orders are available now.

Are you looking forward to ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’? Do you already own PS5, or are you planning to buy ahead of the game’s release? Let us know in the comments.