Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 - Hands-On Preview

Earlier this week, Sony PlayStation/Insomniac Games invited me to an event to play a limited section of the upcoming game Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. So while I don’t know exactly what the full game will be like, if the story will deliver in the same way Spider-Man did and then Miles Morales after that, let me just say, based on the roughly 3 hours I played… HOLY COW THIS GAME IS SO GOOD!

I’ll be saying more on the upcoming episode of DLC, so be on the lookout for that when it drops.

If you’ve played either Spider-Man or Miles Morales, you basically know what to expect. This feels like a sequel in the way God of War Ragnarök was a sequel to 2018’s God of War. That’s not a bad thing. And this game was never pitched or presented as changing the formula that worked so well, so far.

My hands-on time with the game dropped me into digital New York a few hours after the game’s opening. Peter (light spoilers for things that have already been revealed in the game’s marketing, but if you want to go in completely cold…. probably stop reading) already had the symbiote suit, Miles was dealing with his own “work/life” balance, and Kraven was already making things more complicated by hunting Dr. Curtis Connors as the Lizard. I had several upgrades already and was given access to several story missions, and the open-world to explore. I was also able to play as both Peter and Miles.

Based on what I was able to play, Spider-Man 2 continues Insomniac’s trend of creating world-class environments to explore and incredibly tight, responsive gameplay.

A new addition in Spider-Man 2 is the inclusion of abilities in addition to the gadgets featured in Spider-Man and Miles Morales. They function similarly to gadgets, but now the player has what felt like double the combat options at any given time. So while gadgets might be tech-like devices your character can deploy during combat, abilities are more “super power” things your character can do. Some examples include venom blast stuff with Miles and symbiote abilities with Peter.

Another new addition to the combat in Spider-Man 2 is the parry mechanic. Spidey (both Peter and Miles) still have their dodge move from the first games, but now they can also parry attacks, allowing them to avoid enemy damage and deal some damage of their own. Parrying is also required against some enemy attacks. Looking out for the correct timing window to most effectively dodge and/or parry attacks brought a deeper level of combat flow to enemy encounters. Including dodge and parry with both gadgets and abilities only further upped the “get lost in the flow of combat and pull off incredible moves against a whole of host of enemies” feeling.

When it comes to traversal, Spider-Man 2 adds a wingsuit to both Peter and Miles. From the outside that seemed like the biggest “why change what is not broken” idea of anything that was previously announced for this sequel. Swinging around the city in Spider-Man and Miles Morales was a blast. It was always a good time to just zip around the city and explore… so why change things up and add a wingsuit? I guess the simple answer is: it works and it feels great.

During my time with the game, the wingsuit never felt “lesser” or that it was taking anything away from swinging around the city. If anything, much like the abilities, it was just another tool I had to explore the bigger-than-ever city. There’s a really fun “controlled chaos” to the wingsuit in how it feels when you’re using it. I was always able to go where I wanted, but at the same time, it’s not a straight shot, “push a button don’t do anything after that” kind of flying. I’m excited for more people to get to try it out and see what they think too.

So yeah, I am VERY excited for Spider-Man 2 and I’ll have more to say on DLC. The set pieces featured in the demo I played… truly incredible! In a year FULL of amazing games, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 seems to be yet another can’t miss title!

And now just some technical stuff: I was told I was playing a build that was 6-weeks old. The demo I was playing was locked to fidelity mode, though we were told there would be a performance mode available at launch as well. During my 3 hours with the game, I experienced two bugs that required me to reload checkpoints in order to progress.