We are absolutely lousy with superheroes. For more than a decade, movie theaters have been dominated by them. Streaming services and TV channels are filled with them. And yet, in video games, superheroes are still pretty rare.
Excepting the many protagonists capable of shrugging off shotgun blasts to the face or climbing skyscrapers without breaking a sweat, worthwhile games starring actual comic book heroes don’t pop up all that often. When these characters do, they’ve historically starred in the kind of throwaway games where a pixelated Superman or Wolverine walks from the left side of the screen to the right, throwing jabs at enemies until they blink out of existence. (The Batman: Arkham series from Rocksteady Studios, whose last entry arrived in 2015, is an exception.)
Insomniac Games entered this mostly desolate landscape in 2018 with Spider-Man (and later Spider-Man: Miles Morales), a superhero game designed and written well enough to capture the attention of players who may have ignored a Marvel-licensed release. It was a frenetic brawler set in a detailed open world traversed by acrobatic web-swinging, and it told a story with ample heart and great performances. The title cut through decades of accumulated continuity to capture Spider-Man as a character, and it nodded to longtime fans without estranging newcomers.
In true sequel fashion, this month’s Spider-Man 2 is a continuation of—and elaboration on—that first game. There are new supervillains to punch the snot out of; new powers for the game’s protagonists, Peter Parker and Miles Morales’ Spider-Men; and new costumes to unlock. The digital New York City is bigger, the lineup has expanded to include more well-known characters from the comic books, and the narrative builds to lend greater depth to its story.
Rather than substantially reworking what came before, Spider-Man 2 leans further into the kind of wish fulfillment the first game offered: presenting audiences with a toy box bursting with branded action figures and giving them a guided lesson in playing pretend. If this sounds like a juvenile fantasy, it is. But it’s not much different from the vicarious thrills derived from watching superheroes do their thing on screen or page.
