Marvel’s Spider-Man offers a cosmetic suit selection that reaches to all corners of Spider-Man's diverse mythos and source material. Insomniac Games has continued to introduce new suit skins into Marvel's Spider-Man since its release through intermittent DLC packs and spontaneous updates, such as the Webbed Suit from Sam Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy. Of course, there are still many skin cosmetics that fans hope to see in Marvel's Spider-Man or its sequel.
Glitches in Marvel's Spider-Man have been stumbled upon by players that briefly allow them to free-roam as Peter Parker, unmasked and dressed in civilian garb. These glitches mistakenly transition Peter's character model to Marvel's Spider-Man's open-world instead of the player's suit selection. While Peter's mild-mannered, unmasked appearance is not officially available in Marvel's Spider-Man as a skin cosmetic, its addition to Marvel's Spider-Man 2 could uniquely set it apart.
Why a Peter Parker Skin May Not Already Be in Marvel's Spider-Man
Marvel’s Spider-Man lacks a full-fledged Peter Parker skin dedicated to free-roam, where players can traverse and engage in combat. Instead, Insomniac has danced around it with cosmetics where Peter is stripped to his boxer briefs or wearing collegiate Empire State University apparel. Likewise, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ skin cosmetics feature both a casual and a formal Brooklyn Visions Academy outfit, as well as a jacketed sportswear outfit. But in all of these skins that lean more toward their secret identities, Peter and Miles are masked nonetheless.
Peter and Miles are both playable while unmasked in narrative-specific sequences where players walk about or lightly jog before entering the open-world once more in the suit of their choice. To that point, there are sequences where the character will wall-crawl or fire webs while unmasked. Marvel’s Spider-Man’s Silver Lining DLC even has players, as an unmasked Peter, eavesdrop on Hammerhead thugs through NYC streets, crawl up the side of a building, and web-zip.
The ingredients are all there for a functional free-roam Peter Parker skin, but there is also a fairly logical reason why it might not be feasible. It perhaps has something to do with the fact that Insomniac would have to account for all of Peter and Miles’ microcosmic facial animations while traversing the open-world. While masked, Peter can have as many lines as Insomniac wants without having to fret about micro-expressions or lip-sync issues.
However, an unmasked Peter necessitates that attention to detail, and would probably have to have been embedded into the game from the beginning so that Insomniac would not have to retroactively sync his animations to every possible line of dialogue in the open-world. It is also ironically fortunate that Insomniac did not launch Marvel's Spider-Man with a Peter Parker skin because they ultimately would have ended up having to redo all of his facial animations in the open-world after the character's facial model was recast for Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered.
It is uncertain whether or not Insomniac knew this facial model swap would occur at some point in development or if it was a sudden alteration they needed to make after Marvel's Spider-Man's launch. Regardless, it appears as though not having an unmasked Peter skin was a stroke of luck in that regard. Marvel's Spider-Man 2, on the other hand, could set the stage for an unmasked skin alongside its sure-to-be abundant cosmetic catalog.
If Insomniac was to save this cosmetic until the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, civilian-clothed and unmasked skins for both Peter Parker and Miles Morales could have facial animations to reflect spoken dialogue, even if it is only barely perceptible. Further, the skin could be offered as one of three pre-order bonus cosmetics for Marvel's Spider-Man 2, much like Insomniac offered for Marvel's Spider-Man and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Because of the work that would go into the expressions and animations, it is likely that players would see a Peter Parker skin in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 either right away as a cosmetic at launch, or not at all if Insomniac simply prefers to concentrate on other cosmetic additions or gameplay features. Nonetheless, fans will have to wait a long while before such a skin is either confirmed or not for Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
Marvel’s Spider-Man is available now on PS4 and PS5.