Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 took Peter and Miles down a dark path, but they might have one last adventure ahead of them.
Insomniac Games deserves its flowers for what it's done with the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise. These games have some of the most satisfying movement and combat in gaming, a deep understanding of what makes Spider-Man so appealing to comic book fans, and fantastic story campaigns - but there comes a point where all good things must come to an end. This saga began with Peter Parker years deep into his career as the web-slinging Spider-Man, following his struggle with his gradually more unhinged mentor Otto Octavious and the death of his Aunt May in the first game, before rolling right into the introduction of a second Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
Miles got his own spin-off where he came to terms with being his own brand of Spider-Man, and not just some lesser version of Peter. After one Peter-focused game and one Miles-focused game, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 already feels like a culmination of the franchise thus far, bringing both superheroes together in a plot that paints them as equals who aren’t the best at working as a team. Not because they’re not good people, but because good people aren’t perfect.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 told a story of epic proportions that pit its characters in dire situations, pushing them to their emotional and physical brink to save all of New York and beyond. It’s the biggest and boldest Spider-Man entry Insomniac has put out yet, and seemingly the middle part of a planned trilogy too. Various quests and dialogue from the game hint that we might be headed towards the conclusion of this franchise as a whole. Its post-credits scenes quite literally have someone mention a, “final chapter,” which makes the most damning case for the next Spider-Man game to be the last in this franchise.
Here’s everything we know about Marvel’s Spider-Man 3, if and when it happens:
Doctor Octopus will return
Major spoilers for Spider-Man 2 ahead!
Everything seemingly comes full circle in Spider-Man 3, if this game’s post-credits scene is to be taken at face value. Once you beat the game, you get a small scene set in the Raft, the high-security prison Marvel’s most powerful supervillains are banished to upon their capture. One of its citizens is more recent than the rest: Otto Octavius, Peter Parker’s former mentor-turned-baddie. In the scene, Norman Osborn visits the former supervillain after his son Harry goes into a coma, thanks to Venom-related mischief that he now blames on the Spider-Men.
Osborn appears visibly shaken and asks Octavius for the Spider-Men’s secret identities, presumably to take his revenge on them. We know that Otto at least knows that Peter is one of the Spider-Men, but the scientist shakes the question off and resumes writing in a notepad. Upon further prodding from Osborn, he menacingly declares that he’s writing plans for his, “final chapter.”
Octavius has not revealed Peter’s identity to the public yet, and it’s unclear why. Is it because he still harbours some fatherly sentiment for his former mentee, or because he has more sinister plans to put that knowledge to use? Spider-Man 1’s post-credits scene teased the Venom symbiote, and that ended up playing into the plot of its sequel significantly. We can’t assume that this Octavius teaser is any less relevant for Spider-Man 3, giving Peter a full-circle big bad to go up against one last time.
Doctor Octopus might not be the only one causing Peter strife, though.
Norman Osborn’s G-serum
Norman Osborn is best known in Marvel Comics as Peter’s arch-nemesis the Green Goblin, a psychotic Halloween-inspired supervillain who throws pumpkin bombs and flies around on a bat-shaped glider. He’s as cartoonish as a comic book villain can get, which might be why Insomniac’s more grounded superhero universe hasn’t touched on the baddie yet. Given the Green Goblin’s historic hatred of Spider-Man though, it was only a matter of time before he entered the fray.
At the end of Spider-Man 2’s main campaign, Norman lashes out with fury after seeing his son Harry collapse into a seemingly unending coma. After wrecking Harry’s hospital room, he angrily phones one of his employees at Oscorp and demands they get him ‘the G-Serum’ immediately. The Green Goblin’s origins have always involved some form of chemically-induced insanity, so this is likely Insomniac’s way of teasing the villain’s impending arrival. Either Norman is taking the G-Serum to horrific effects, or he’s giving it to Harry to snap the kid out of his coma.
Given that we've already had one game about Harry taking dangerous cures with horrific side effects, I'm willing to bet it's Norman's turn this time.
Cindy Moon/Silk
Perhaps the most unexpected reveal in this whole game was the identity of Rio Morales’ mysterious boyfriend - or rather, that boyfriend’s daughter. Throughout the whole game, Rio asks Miles to meet her newfound boyfriend, only for her son to have his hands full with Spider-Man things. In the game’s final post-credits scene, we finally see Miles meet Rio's boyfriend during a family dinner.
It is revealed that Rio’s boyfriend is Albert Moon, and he’s brought his daughter along for the family dinner: Cindy Moon. In the comics, Cindy Moon is a superhero living in New York City with Spider-related powers, operating under the guise of Silk. Silk had a rough upbringing in the comics - having been imprisoned for years on end at one point. She was also bitten by the same radioactive spider as Peter and the two developed an intense attraction towards each other because of it, but it's safe to assume that Insomniac plans to leave this bit of her backstory out.
Silk has a few traits that set her apart from Peter and Miles, but is Insomniac really planning to add another Spider-person to New York City? Is the city big enough for three Spider-People to swing around?
Cletus Kasady/Carnage
Peter and Miles saved the world from a symbiote epidemic in Spider-Man 2, but their alien goo problems are far from over. One of the game’s sidequests sees Peter team up with his old cop buddy Yuri Watanabe from the first game, only now she’s driven purely by revenge for her dead colleagues. She goes by the name Wraith, dispensing harsh justice to evildoers everywhere even if it means ending their lives entirely.
In a series of missions called ‘The Flame’, Peter teams up with Wraith to take down an old foe called Cletus Kasady. Upon the storyline’s conclusion, Kasady’s true intentions are revealed: he only wanted a container with a portion of the Venom symbiote to bring about a dark event he refers to as ‘the Crimson Hour’. In his hands, the symbiote shifts colours from black to red, and he escapes with it to places unknown.
In the comics, Cletus Kasady is the name of a serial killer who eventually merges with an alien symbiote to become the supervillain Carnage - a baddie much more inclined to random acts of violence than Venom. When Peter and Miles took Venom out at the end of the main campaign, they also destroyed all the remaining symbiotes in New York City - though it’s hard to believe that Cletus’ symbiote was one of them. He’ll be back.
Peter takes a step back
Spider-Man 2’s final flurry of cutscenes suggests that Peter is just about ready to step back from New York City, especially since Miles is fully willing to take on all his responsibilities as Spider-Man. While Peter’s a little young to retire fully, the game ends with him setting up a foundation named after Aunt May and Harry’s mother in an effort to ‘heal the world’, like Harry would have wanted. In the comics, Peter did do a brief stint at a scientific foundation where he tried to better the world through meaningful scientific developments rather than superheroics. Of course, he ended up going bankrupt and losing everything in the end, but this Peter seems like he’s headed down a more stable path.
However, with Silk on the horizon and Miles well-equipped to take over, it's easy to imagine an ending to this franchise that either sees Peter retiring the Spider-Man mantle for good - or outright dying in battle against the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus. Miles' origin story in the comics involved Peter's death after all, so is this franchise headed towards one less Spider-Man protecting the city?
Strange Daredevil-related room?
There is a lot Insomniac could do with Spider-Man 3, whether they decide to end the saga there or not. Fans have spotted a strange room in New York City with rumoured ties to Daredevil-related DLC, and Kraven’s brother the Chameleon was revealed to be alive and kicking in another side-mission. Insomniac could either take the sequel route straight away, or the studio could explore these plotlines in a series of expansions much like the first game.
With the Green Goblin and Doctor Octopus now in the running as the third game’s villains, things seem neatly set up for Peter’s story to end with a trilogy. If Insomniac wants to do more with these characters, we could always see Spidey pop up again in Marvel’s Wolverine somewhere down the line. The future of Spider-Man is bright, even if this franchise comes to an end.