The Three Big Things We Learned From The ‘Spider-Man 2’ Gameplay Trailer

The PlayStation showcase trailer on Wednesday was full of the kinds of hits we’ve come to expect from Sony and PlayStation. It had a great mix of AAA titles, some indies to look forward to, and we even got a big hardware update on the way with what looked like PlayStation’s answer to the Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck. Of all the games shown though, none of them hit the way that Spider-Man 2 did. It was easily the most anticipated title in the entire showcase and it was deservingly how they chose to end the entire showcase.

This trailer is not a small endeavor. Not only does it introduce one of the game’s main antagonists, Kraven the Hunter, but it also gives us 10 whole minutes of action filled gameplay to watch. With so much shown it could have been difficult to break down everything we saw, but three aspects of it stood out above all else.

Peter Parker’s Venom Suit And Powers

The trailer wastes no time catching our eyes with Peter Parker bursting out of a basement wearing his newest black suit and showing off the new powers that come with it. Longtime fans of the web-slinger, and those of us who watched the credits sequence at the end of the first game, will recognize it as the Symbiote suit or “Venom powers.” Unlike when Hollywood tried this with Spider-Man 3 all those years ago, this suit actually feels intimidating with Peter tossing aside opponents with a brutality that wasn’t there in the first game. He speaks with a gruff tone, threatens those he’s fighting against, and makes no quips whatsoever which is extremely out of character for him. Even Miles, his trusted partner, receives a scolding tone from Peter in a way that, at the end of the trailer, Miles acknowledges is not like him at all.

We’ve known for some time that the Symbiote suit, and possibly Venom, are going to be a part of this story. It’s one of the more well known and popular Spider-Man stories, but it’s going to be really fun to see how the game chooses to tell it. Especially after some of the trials and tribulations that Peter was put through in the first game and its DLC. He has gone through hell, and the suit is coming to him at a dark point in his life. This is an opportunity to explore the dark side of Peter Parker and do it in a way that is interesting and engaging. Just no dance sequences, please.

Terrible.

Switching Between Peter and Miles Morales

Ever since Miles proved himself to be just as capable as Peter, receiving his own game when the PlayStation 5 released in 2020, the question everyone had was what role would he play in the follow-up, Spider-Man 2. He was just as much a part of the reveal trailer as Peter was, so we knew he’d have a role in the story, but how deep is that role? If the gameplay reveal is anything to go off of, this is just as much his story as it is Peter’s.

The trailer starts off with Peter, but the gameplay doesn’t take long before it switches over to Miles giving us a look back into the quirks that are unique about him while he swings through the city. The way the game seamlessly switches between the two is shown again later on during a boat chase sequence where the two Spider-Men work together to take down a caravan of helicopters and jetskis, and at no point does it look like one is out of the place compared to the other. This is not a game about Peter Parker or Miles Morales, but instead a game about Peter Parker AND Miles Morales. The trailer’s final message “Be Greater. Together.” echoes this.

Air Gliding

When the first game came out, the immediate reaction everyone had was “Wow I feel like Spider-Man when I swing around,” to the point of cliche. While cliched, the point was correct because the first Spider-Man game, and its follow up with Miles Morales, feel amazing to travel around the city in. The swinging is fun, and you don’t want to use its fast travel feature because that would take away from the experience of moving around the city. The only problem with this is when you perfect something like that so well in the first game how do you improve on it in the second? Easy. Iterate on it.

Multiple times in the trailer you see both Peter and Miles glide through the sky almost like they have a wing suit. Their rate of speed increases whenever they do it and it makes the idea of traveling around New York City even more fun than it already was. Now, players will be able to truly zoom around the entire city as they swing, glide, and jump across the many skyscrapers. I can’t wait to go back into that world and traverse it all over again, and that’s a testament to how fun the movement felt in the first game and how fun it just might be in the second one.