5 Reasons You Should Play Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

The video game world is abuzz this week with many new releases, but perhaps the most exciting is Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. The highly anticipated sequel to 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man and 2020’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales has arrived.

I’ve been lucky enough to play the game a little early thanks to PlayStation Australia and have picked out a few (spoiler-free) stand-out aspects of the game that I think make it absolutely worth picking up.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: Top Features

Two Playable Spider-Men

Marvel’s Spider-Man gave you control of Peter Parker and the follow-up handed the reigns to Miles Morales, but in Spider-Man 2 you can play as them both.

Both Peter and Miles offer their familiar suite of powers, plus an enhanced arsenal of gadgets and combat moves. Each is equally as fun to play as the other and they both have their own unique missions and side quests to complete, which offers a nice balance of gameplay time between them.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 also nails a compelling story featuring worthy arcs for both Miles and Peter (and their surrounding friends and family like MJ, Ganke and Harry), that includes enough classic Spider-Man villains to keep things surprising.

The best part? Even if you haven’t played the previous games you can still jump right in to Spider-Man 2. The game includes a recap at the beginning of your playthrough that will catch you up to speed.

Web Wings

If you’ve played any of Insomniac’s previous Spider-Man games you’ll know that one of the best parts is the traversal system. Web swinging through New York City is such a joy to experience but, somehow, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 makes this even better.

Thanks to the new web wings, travelling through NYC is faster, more versatile and way more fun. Gliding over the skyscrapers, skimming the water of the East River and swooping through iconic locations are all a delight thanks to the new web wings and make the expanded map even easier to navigate.

Discover New York City

Speaking of that expanded map, New York City in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be familiar, but also a little different. The map area has grown to encompass two new iconic boroughs, Queens and Brooklyn. Queens is Peter’s original home and allows you to explore a slice of suburbia, including Aunt May’s house. Brooklyn meanwhile is home to Miles’ high school, Brooklyn Visions. You can even take a walk around Coney Island.

That and the entirety of Manhattan are still at your disposal, and on the PS5 it’s looking better than ever. Ray tracing makes reflections in windows appear real and Insomniac has worked to make the city denser than ever. If you crawl up a building and look through a window you might see people inside. At night, you can see the individual lights on in the windows of skyscrapers. The detail and beauty of New York in Spider-Man 2 is something to behold.

Spidey suits

Spider-Man already has a pretty stellar suit, but the big drawcard of the previous games has been the ability to change your in-game suit to a variety of iconic and original suits. That continues in Spider-Man 2, to an almost overwhelming degree. Not only are there suits but there are suit styles that allow you to slightly alter the color palette of each suit you unlock.

You’ll be able to wear iconic suits from Spider-Man movies and comics as well as a number of original designs from the game devs.

The perfect length

Nowadays, when it comes to video games, duration is important. Sprawling epics like Cyberpunk 2077 and Starfield can take a phenomenally long time to beat, which sometimes just isn’t possible to commit to in our busy lives these days.

Thankfully, Spider-Man 2 feels very achievable. Devs have said that the story is around the same length as the first Spider-Man game, which will have it clocking in at around 18 hours. From there it’s about an extra 5-10 hours to complete all the side quests and get the platinum trophy, so it’s really quite achievable and we love to see that in games nowadays.

After landing a 90 on Metacritic, with many top scores across the board, it’s safe to say Marvel’s Spider-Man is a blockbuster achievement fans will love. More important, however, is the fact that it’s just a whole lot of fun.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 releases on PS5 on October 20. Pick up a cheap copy here.

Lead Image Credit: Insomniac/PlayStation