No matter what form of media he appears in, it is hard to separate Spider-Man from his home city of New York. Spider-Man stories set outside The Big Apple often leave the Webslinger feeling like a fish out of water. Without any nearby tall buildings to attach his webs to, Spider-Man has to resort to hitching a ride from allies who brought their own transport. Marvel's Spider-Man smartly puts the Webhead in his element, dropping players in a fully explorable version of New York City.

While some sections of the games take place indoors and in the Raft - a super-maximum security prison, the majority of Marvel's Spider-Man and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales are set in the open city. While it may be awhile before the sequel gets released, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 should take elements from the previous games' versions of New York and update them using current-gen hardware.

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Marvel's Spider-Man's New York

The Into The Spider-Verse Suit in Marvel's Spider-Man

Those who played Marvel's Spider-Man or Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales have spent hours traversing Insomniac Games' version of New York. Thankfully, the web swinging in both games is so immersive that mostly players won't mind the commute (they may even prefer it to fast-travel systems). Despite the size of New York, players can make it from northern Harlem to the southern Financial District in a couple of minutes.

Because players spend so much time swinging around the city, they subconsciously create a mental map of New York. Without the aid of the in-game map, players learn the locations of places such as Miles' new home in east Harlem and the Chinatown F.E.A.S.T. shelter where Aunt May works. Apart from important story locations, players also start to learn the overall city layout, including real-world locations like Central Park and the Empire State Building alongside fictional buildings such as Avengers Tower and Doctor Strange's Sanctum Sanctorum. While not as integral as web swinging or crime fighting, mapping New York also feeds into the fantasy that players feel are Spider-Man and The Big Apple is their playground.

A New New York for Spider-Man's Sequel

Spider-Man web swing

Seeing as Marvel's Spider-Man 2 will release exclusively on PS5, Insomniac Games can make use of the system's power to create a more immersive New York. Better graphics are a staple of games on newer consoles, but Insomniac can do much more by adding traversal options and objects for both Spider-Men to make use of. The previous games gave Peter and Miles multiple buildings to swing from, but in terms of variety, New York felt a bit lacking. Players got a thrill out of swinging through the legs of water towers and into construction pipes, but these were few and far between with similar animations. By adding more elements for the Spider-Men to interact with, Insomniac Games would have a chance to flex its creative muscles and create a truly advanced Marvel's Spider-Man sequel.

While developers are investing time in creating this updated version of New York, they shouldn't ignore players who fell in love with the previous games' iterations. Instead of remaking New York from the ground up, Insomniac Games should keep the general layout intact. By making the city in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 an evolution of the previous games' maps, veteran players could use their old mental maps to adapt. Player knowledge should never go unrewarded, and it's always nice when knowledge from past games can be used in sequels. Marvel's Spider-Man 2's New York will undoubtedly feel fresh, but retaining some of the old game's charm would be appreciated.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is scheduled to release in 2023 on PS5.

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