The Symbiote is a force to be reckoned with in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, to the point where Insomniac is concerned with making sure its attacks aren’t too overpowered. Venom was already teased in the initial Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 trailer, but longtime comic fans know that the sinister Symbiote that grants the villain his power was originally bonded to Peter Parker, aka the Amazing Spider-Man. It wasn’t entirely clear if Insomniac would follow this in its retelling of the classic Venom storyline, at least until last week’s PlayStation Showcase confirmed that Peter will indeed don his classic black suit.
The bulk of last week’s Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 trailer consisted of Peter showing off his new Symbiote playstyle, and it has already made quite the impression. While fending off Kraven the Hunter’s army of mercenaries, Peter unleashes a brutal flurry of tendril-based attacks and enhanced physical strikes that capture just how much darker the alien makes the once cheery web-slinger. Sure enough, the Symbiote is already corrupting Peter’s mind in the short time that he has been shown wearing it in Spider-Man 2 so far, so much so that the trailer ends with Miles Morales worrying for his fellow wall-crawler.
He’s not the only one concerned about Peter’s new Symbiote abilities in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, as the developers at Insomniac Games were worried that his finishing attacks might be just a bit too powerful. In a recent interview with IGN, Spider-Man 2 creative director Bryan Intihar and game director Ryan Smith discussed the efforts that went into ensuring that the Symbiote-infected Spider-Man feels as powerful and brutal as fans expect. This also meant making sure Spidey’s attacks were properly balanced so that the game wouldn’t be too easy, which was an area of concern during the game’s development.
Intihar and Smith also described how Marvel’s Spider-Man 2's story will explore the effects the Symbiote has on Peter's mind and the toll its corruption takes on his friends and loved ones. As mentioned before, Miles notes that something is very wrong with Peter at the end of the latest Spider-Man 2 trailer, and Peter Parker voice actor Yuri Lowenthal recently revealed that he researched real-life addiction behaviors to better capture how Peter grows to depend on the Symbiote in his quest to save his friend Harry Osborn.
While the Symbiote does look like it will drive Peter Parker down a darker path in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, it will also grant the web-slinger a host of powerful new abilities that let players unleash the monstrous side of Spider-Man’s classic black suit without being overpowered. The developers of Insomniac have taken care to walk the fine line between a fun power fantasy and a challenging gameplay experience, and players will finally get to slip on the Symbiote for themselves when Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 finally swings onto the PS5 later this year.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 launches this fall, exclusively for PlayStation 5.
Source: IGN