“Marvel's Spider-Man 2” creators talk post-credits scenes, surprise reveals, and symbiotes
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Warning: This article contains spoilers from Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
According to Insomniac Games, a lot of people are playing Marvel's Spider-Man 2 right now on the PlayStation 5 — at least 2.5 million as of this week. The highly anticipated blockbuster video game sequel to 2018's mega hit dropped in on Oct. 20, and within 24 hours, it became the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game in PlayStation history. Not too shabby.
Between the continuing stories of Peter Parker (Yuri Lowenthal), Miles Morales (Nadji Jeter), and Mary Jane Watson (Laura Bailey), plus the introduction of Harry Osborn (Graham Phillips), Venom (Tony Todd), and Kraven (Jim Pirri), there's a lot to unpack. One week out from launch, the game's creators — Bryan Intihar (senior creative director), Jon Paquette (senior narrative director), and Jacinda Chew (senior art director) — sat down with EW over Zoom to break down the biggest surprises from their neck of the Spider-Verse.
Consider this your last spoiler warning...
The post-credits scenes
As fans have come to expect from Marvel's Spider-Man and the Miles Morales standalone spinoff, this game also comes with the same kind of post-credits scenes known in Marvel movies.
The first, more like mid-credits scene, sees the surprise return of Otto Octavius (William Salyers), the primary villain of the first game. After Peter and Miles purge Harry of the symbiote, Norman arrives on the scene and blames both Spider-Men for harming his son. The head of Oscorp arrives at the Raft to speak with Otto in the hopes of learning the web-slingers' identities. Otto doesn't relent, instead telling him, "We all have to experience loss." Norman notices Otto has been working on something in a journal and inquires, "What are you writing?" Otto answers, "The final chapter."
Insomniac Games Norman and Harry Osborn in 'Marvel's Spider-Man 2'
"People like to ask us how much the franchise is planned out," Intihar says. "I can tell you that scene, in some way, has always been the plan since day one. We knew that the second game would end with that kind of scene."
Clearly, there are larger plans the creators want to keep close to the vest, but they do address the Green Goblin of it all. Marvel's Spider-Man heavily teased the transformation of Norman into the infamous Spidey villain with the reveal of a mask and prototype bombs hidden away in the millionaire's secret office. The games have yet to watch that particular seed bear fruit. However, the ending of the sequel sees Norman standing over Harry's comatose body. It was previously hinted that he's been experimenting with an alternate method to cure his son beyond the symbiote, and in this scene, he makes a phone call to deliver the G-Serum, the substance that will inevitably begin the Green Goblin transformation.
"We've literally discussed Green Goblin at every game," Intihar says. "The fact that you're even bringing up the question shows you how popular that character is. If you bring him in, it's kind of like Venom. There are very, very big expectations. So, you want to make sure if you're going to do it, you're going to deliver on it."
Paquette confirms they initially considered introducing the Green Goblin at the end of the first game, but quickly realized the story was already packed with characters, from Task Master to Black Cat to the entirety of the Sinister Six. "From the tease at the end of the first game, we knew we wanted [Marvel's Spider-Man 2] to be a story about Venom," the writer explains. "We realized we needed that ending to be about Peter and Harry and Miles and MJ. That felt like a great setup for maybe a future appearance of the Green Goblin. If you really think about Norman Osborn from the last three games, he's done a lot to hurt the city, but he's doing it all for the love of his son. At the end of this game, his son is now ostensibly taken away from him. So, we felt like we had a really good setup there to potentially kick off another story, if we ever decide to do something else with that character."
Cindy Moon
Marvel Comics Cindy Moon as Silk in the comics
The second post-credits scene introduces another well known figure from the Spider-Man canon.
Miles' mom, Rio Morales (Jacqueline Pinol), teased throughout the game that she started dating again after her husband's death and is, in fact, seeing someone in particular. The final scene, which arrives after all the credits, sees Rio introducing that certain individual to Miles over dinner: Albert Moon. And not only that, Albert brought his daughter, Cindy, who players only see from behind as she waves.
In the comics, Cindy Moon is a Korean-American student who becomes another web-slinging superhero called Silk after she was bitten by a radioactive spider. Intihar and Paquette give all the credit for this inclusion to Chew and project director at Insomniac Games, Jeanette Lee. "We obviously talked about another character that you might expect," Intihar says, alluding to Gwen Stacy, a character who notably appears opposite Miles Morales in the Spider-Verse movies. "I remember Jeanette and Jacinda coming to me and talking about the idea of that individual being involved."
"With Cindy, it felt like there was more possibility there because sometimes you get weighed down and also bolstered by fan expectation," Chew elaborates. "Cindy Moon is a character that has so much possibility because she's not as well known. We were like, 'Let's just do something different.'"
Into the Spider-Verse
Sony Pictures Animation Miles Morales in 'Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse'
Arguably, the biggest shocker of them all doesn't come from the main story's ending or the post-credits scenes. It comes from Spider-Bots.
One of the side missions involves scouring the city for rogue Spider-Bots, the robots Peter and Miles often use to surveil confined spaces. The more you collect, the easier it is for Miles' right-hand tech guy Ganke (Griffin Puatu) to track down the mysterious figure who's been hijacking their signal. As soon as you gather them all, Ganke sends you to an alleyway where a portal opens up — in the visual hexagonal style of multiverse travel from the Spider-Verse animated movies — and reveals Delilah.
In the comics, Delilah is an assassin who grapples with Spider-Man a few times. She was supposed to be included in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse but was later cut from the film. The plan was to have her serve as the bartender at the Bath with No Name, an interdimensional bar for supervillains. She now appears in the same context in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. After taking all the Spider-Bots, she remarks, "If Miguel comes looking for these, tell him, 'Finders keepers.'" This is a clear nod to Miguel O'Hara, Oscar Isaac's alt-reality Spider-Man 2099 from the films.
Intihar confirms this reveal in the game involved many conversations with the folks at Sony Animation. The first game had already incorporated some of the Spider-Verse-accurate suits, while the Miles Morales game took it a step further by incorporating movie-accurate animation movements. And vice versa: Across the Spider-Verse incorporated a cameo from the Peter Parker of the Marvel's Spider-Man games. For Marvel's Spider-Man 2, they creators wanted to go beyond just suits.
Intihar and Paquette threw out a few ideas to Sony Animation, but it clicked when they returned to the Spider-Bots. "They're all going to be themed around all these different spiders and these different characters. That's very Spider-Verse," Intihar says. "Could we have a connection?" That's when they learned about scrapped plans to incorporate Delilah into the movies. "Our goal with Spider-Man 2 was to inject as much narrative as we could into some of the optional activities, even a collectible like a Spider-Bot," Intihar continues. "If we could have good narrative payoff at the end, that this is somehow tied to Spider-Verse, it would be the cherry on top of the experience."
Playable Venom
Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment The Tony Todd-voiced Venom has arrived in 'Marvel's Spider-Man 2'
When Venom finally shows his face, once the symbiote retakes possession of Harry and gives him the kind of smile only an alien mother could love. Players are met with a treat: they get to actually play the proceeding level as Venom, as he... erm... it tears through the Emily May Foundation headquarters.
Intihar delivers a frank response as to why they made this an offering: "I wanted to survive the internet." In other words, he knew just how much fans would be chomping at the bit to take this hulk of a Spidey baddie out for a spin. "One of the big hallmark moments of the first game is when the Sinister Six is formed," Intihar continues. "We were like, 'How do we top the Sinister Six?'"
Aside from being fun, the playable Venom level served a lot of functions for the game-makers. As Intihar explains, they wanted an emotional response to Harry becoming Venom and feeling rejected by Peter. But also, they wanted a clear way to show the player just how powerful of an adversary Venom actually is. "If we didn't allow the player to play as Venom, they wouldn't have the same emotional connection with the character," Paquette adds. "We wanted to craft the moment where, for just a second, it felt like it was going to be a fight between Pete and Venom right there. Then we turn the camera and we let you play as Venom. It was on purpose that we did that. "
I Scream, you Scream, we all Scream...
Insomniac Games MJ transforms into Scream in 'Marvel's Spider-Man 2'
Venom isn't the only member of the larger symbiote collective showing up to the family picnic. In one particular encounter with Venom at Peter's house in Queens, MJ is infected by one of the alien hive-minds and transformed into Scream, another notable symbiote villain from Marvel Comics.
Intihar says it wasn't originally going to be Scream. "In our first concept image of that encounter, you actually see MJ more in a black-and-white Venom look," he recalls. "As we were making the game, we were like, 'How can we make this more Marvel? Well, why don't we just have her become one of the most popular female [villains]?'"
"She was technically really challenging," Chew explains of designing Scream's look. "She's also red and yellow in the comics, and she's got the red hair, but we actually tried different hairstyles on her. She actually has pigtails. We tried doing red-and-yellow hair, but since MJ is a redhead, it just seemed like it made sense to give her a full head of red. Also in the comics, she doesn't look as powerful as we made her. That was a really big deal for our Scream. She had to be formidable. She had to still look feminine, but getting that type of athleticism right on her was also really important."
There will be Carnage
Insomniac Games Cletus Kasady leads the Cult of the Flame in 'Marvel's Spider-Man 2'
There are, in fact, two prominent redheads in Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
A side mission introduced a few beats into the game sees Peter teaming up with Wraith (his old pal Yuri Watanabe) to take down the Cult of the Flame, a religious group of pyromaniacs who follow their leader, who's also called the Flame. We learn he's connected to Yuri's past: a red-headed, red-bearded killer who used to run a low-level gang of criminals but rebranded himself as a full-on cult leader. He goes by many aliases, one of which is Cletus Kasady, the madman of Spider-Man comics who's destined to become the symbiote monster Carnage.
Voiced by Chad Doreck in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Cletus leads his followers towards what they call the Crimson Hour, a prophesied event in which all deemed unworthy are burned away in fire. Investigating one of the Flame's hideouts reveals drawings of red humanoid figures with white eyes and fangs — not so dissimilar from the Carnage of the comics. The side mission ends with the cult derailing an Oscorp train containing a sample of the symbiote. Cletus then ominously declares as he holds the alien substance, "When the Crimson Hour rolls over this earth, it shall bring truth, judgment, and carnage."
It's safe to say that players will eventually see more of Cletus as Carnage in the future, since that particular transformation never paid off. "We thought for a minute about having a whole Carnage thing in the game, but there was just not enough time and not enough space to do that," Paquette says. "But there's certainly enough space to set up something in the future." Our best guess is a DLC, similar to what Insomniac released post-launch for Marvel's Spider-Man with Black Cat.
Chew discusses the design of Cletus' look in the game, particularly how their initial treatments made him look like a "guru" or "New Age hippie" instead of a cult leader. "Giving him a Hawaiian shirt was the really big part of his charm," she says. "If you look really carefully at the design, it actually looks like either red tendrils or blood and water. So, there's some metaphors being played out here. The other thing was we were able to go a little bit darker. Instead of having tattoos like his followers, he's actually got these raised scars all shaped like flames going up his arms and his chest. My other favorite part about him is the fact that he is walking around barefoot. He looks charming yet unhinged."
Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk's secret roles
Dan Wilby Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk
If you pay attention to the end credits (we know they're long!), you will find Firefly and The Rookie alum Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk voiced unspecified roles in the game. Intihar confirms they are bodega cats. Well, two men dressed as bodega cats.
On a Peter Parker side mission to snap photos around New York City, players are led to a storefront where two mascots dressed as Spider-Man-style bodega cats are in the throes of an argument on the sidewalk. They hail from rival bodegas and are mad that the other seemingly copied their look.
"One of our writers, Nick Folkman, wrote up a bunch of lines for Nathan and Alan to read," Intihar says. "They came in on a weekend and went into the VO booth and they vamped for a while. They're huge fans of the game. I think we brought them in because they wanted to be part of the next game. It's really cool when you have actors of their stature who get excited about your stuff and want to be in it."
The Baxter Building
Insomniac Games The Baxter Building revealed in 'Marvel's Spider-Man 2'
Something fantastic has arrived in New York City.
After the fall of Wilson Fisk in the first game, the city has changed and there are new tenants taking over Kingpin's headquarters. Fisk Towers is now officially rebranded as the Baxter Building, which means the Fantastic Four have arrived in this Earth-1048 reality. Players can stumble upon this Easter egg while web-swinging to the top of the building, revealing a construction team is in the middle of painting the Fantastic Four insignia on the rooftop.
Intihar remembers a lot of the online feedback to Marvel's Spider-Man, specifically all the questions around, "Where the heck are the other New York-based heroes when the city is falling?" He promises this Baxter Building addition was not a response to that. "It was more about continuing to make the city feel more like Marvel," he says. "We saw that opportunity. With it taking the place of the Fisk building, it was a city development kind of initiative."
Does this mean Reed Richards, Sue and Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm will be popping up anytime soon? "There's probably 20 things we could talk about that are in the game that would lead to something else," Intihar says. "So, I mean, we'll see what the future holds."
Wakanda Forever
Insomniac Games Miles Morales channels Black Panther with a special suit in 'Marvel's Spider-Man 2'
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 features upwards of 64 different Spidey suits for both Peter Parker and Miles Morales to wear, from movie-accurate ones to gear ripped straight out of the comics. One in particular pays tribute to the fallen king of Wakanda, Chadwick Boseman, the Black Panther star who died tragically in 2020.
As Miles, players can acquire the "Forever" Spidey suit, which gives him a Black Panther-esque look that replicates Boseman's T'Challa getup from the Avengers movies. There's an added treat that makes the inclusion more meaningful: players can have Miles travel to the Wakandan embassy, located in Midtown Manhattan, and perform the Wakandan salute in front of its doors.
"We're all really big fans of the Black Panther, so we really wanted to get this suit in the game," Chew says. "We just tried to stay true to the design that's in the comics."
It was the popular artist Boss Logic who made Intihar think of this suit. The online creator, known for designing superhero-related art pieces that tend to go viral, put together a hero look that mashed together Spider-Man and Black Panther. "I was like, 'We got to get that suit,'" he says. "I think every three months we would ask Marvel if we could have it. Thankfully, we finally were able to get everything we needed to get permission."
Wolverine
Insomniac Games Miles Morales dons a Wolverine suit in 'Marvel's Spider-Man 2'
Another suit sees Miles channeling Wolverine, which comes directly from a 2022 What If...? comic book about a reality in which the Brooklyn web-slinger actually became the adamantium-clawed mutant. But there are even more references to Wolverine if you know where to look.
Deep in one of Kraven's hideouts, players can find files that name-drop Madripoor, the fictional country Wolverine frequents in the comics; and Trask Industries, whose CEO famously gives Logan his signature adamantium skeleton through a painful, near-fatal surgery. All of these are perhaps even more significant considering Insomniac has already announced a Wolverine-focused game.
Paquette confirms the upcoming game will exist in the same universe as Marvel's Spider-Man entries, in the strand of the Marvel multiverse they are calling Earth-1048. "We did want to make sure that there was at least a nod, to make sure that we were setting up this 1048 universe and doing it justice," he says. "We don't want to put anything in front of the Wolverine team that would make it more difficult for them paint themselves into a corner. We just want them to be able to make the story and the game that they want to make."
"For us, the most important thing right now is to make sure that game doesn't have to talk about the Spider-verse in our games, making sure there's no obstacles or roadblocks they have to think extra about," Intihar adds. "We just want to support them so that they can make the best Wolverine game possible. The things I've seen, they're well on their way. I'm very excited to see how that comes out."
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