Marvel's Spider-Man 2 seemed to have been put to bed as developer Insomniac switched its focus to the upcoming Marvel's Wolverine, but apparently there's at least one more surprise in store. Alongside the release of today's Spider-Man: Brand New Day trailer, Insomniac revealed that Spidey's new look is coming to the game in a free update on PS5 and PC.

"Get a fresh start in Marvel's Spider-Man 2," the studio exclaims in a tweet. "Swing across skylines in Peter Parker's 'Fresh Start' suit inspired by the upcoming film, Spider-Man: Brand New Day, in theatres July 31! The suit will be available in-game via update July 28 on PS5 and PC at no additional cost!" You can get a very brief look at the new suit at the end of the trailer below.

The game already features an array of suits paying tribute to Spider-Man's varied appearances across different media, including designs inspired by both the Sam Raimi films and the modern MCU movies. But this update is particularly notable simply because it's the first major change to the game in over a year.

In fact, the last update of any kind for Spider-Man 2 appears to have been a May 2025 hotfix for the PC version. That version, of course, launched some time after the PS5 original, and brought with it the sad news that no story DLC was planned for the game, despite some seemingly obvious teases for it in one of the side stories.

With that in mind, it's notable that Spider-Man 2 is getting what's likely its final update in time for the upcoming film. Any excuse to go swinging through digital NYC again is a good one in my mind.

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Marvel's Wolverine developers say violence is an integral part of the game, except you will be able to turn it off anyway if you fancy.

Speaking with IGN, game director Mike Daly explains: "From the inception of the project, we knew that the number one most important thing was to bring the Wolverine fantasy to life. Not just that, but make it the ultimate Wolverine fantasy." He adds, "it was clear that violence was a key part of that." Because yes, while Insomniac's take on Spider-Man does have a bit of blood here and there, the footage we've seen of Wolverine features waves of gore and chunks of people flying all around the screen constantly.

But despite having a level of gore that I'd maybe say is a bit over the top, Daly says "we want to have a grounded world with believable things that happen. So we didn't want to go over the top. " He adds, "We really wanted to hit the bullseye on what is the best representation of Wolverine, what delivers fan expectations, and what's going to keep the claw combat action satisfying over the whole course of the playthrough."

However, obviously some people aren't too keen on the idea of constant gore, whether they're squeamish themselves or perhaps a parent buying the game for their kid without paying attention to details because it has a Marvel character on the box, but Insomniac has thought ahead. As Daly explains, "We know that it's not for everyone. And because we knew this was going to be a big part of the game from the beginning, we also implemented an accessibility feature to turn off gore."

And, from the sounds of things, a lot of thought was put into the balance. "It's clearly integrated into the game in a lot of different ways, and so it's a nuanced feature that is very selective about what we show, what we censor, turning off blood and things like that, just in order to make it more palatable to people who don't really want to have that part of the experience," he adds.

Marvel's Wolverine trailer reveals Jean Grey, Sabretooth, and more classic X-Men appearances.

Marvel's Wolverine clawed its way to the top of the State of Play announcements on June 2, as Insomniac Games revealed a new batch of gory gameplay and a reminder that we can finally unleash hell as Logan as soon as September 15.

More importantly, Marvel's Wolverine pre-orders have been unleashed at US and UK retailers. Starting now, you can grab the Standard Edition for $69 (Walmart) / £64.95 (TheGameCollection) if you're after a physical copy, or $79.99 (PS Store) / £79.99 (PS Store) for the Digital Deluxe Edition if you're after a digital one. Picking up both this early will grant you a set of in-game pre-order bonuses, including an early access Brown Suit and a set of Reflective Claws to use in-game. But if you were after 19 inches of Wolverine as part of a fancy Collector's Edition, you'll have to go empty-handed.

Unlike Insomniac Games' last Spidey outing, there's no fancy version of Marvel's Wolverine for PS5 up for grabs. While you'll have to do without a plastic replica of Logan's claws or iconic helmet, the Deluxe Digital Edition does at least pack in all the in-game pre-order bonuses, along with up to five exclusive suits and five exclusive sets of claws to help satiate your collecting ways.

Marvel's Wolverine US Pre-orders

Marvel's Wolverine UK Pre-orders

FAQ

Picking up one of the best PS5 headsets, the best PS5 controllers, and the best SSD for PS5 will help ensure your Sony pixel-pusher is equipped and ready to take on Marvel's Wolverine.

I wasn't sure whether we'd see many upcoming PS5 games at Summer Game Fest 2026, but now that Sony has finally unveiled its plans for June's State of Play showcase, I'm finally feeling more optimistic about what will actually be taking the stage.

If Summer Game Fest 2026's schedule encompasses the main events, State of Play is more of a pregame. This is where I'm expecting to see the console exclusive titles having a bit of a preen, from the confirmed presence of the new Wolverine game (more on that below) to more recent new game announcements that haven't had much more than an initial teaser.

I've also thrown in a handful of cross-platform heavy-hitters for good measure, since the current list of PS5 exclusive offerings is growing a little thin these days. But I think you'll agree that all of these games are pretty likely contenders when it comes to the PS5 games to watch for at SGF this year, so keep scrolling and theorize with me.

1. Marvel's Wolverine

Developer: Insomniac Games
Platform(s): PS5
Release date: September 15, 2026

This is less of a prediction, more of a certainty. With June 2026's Sony State of Play already locked in, Marvel's Wolverine will be kicking off the pre-SGF festivities in adamantine-clawed style. We can expect a deep-dive into the upcoming Marvel game during the showcase, which will hopefully add a little color to the picture given how little we've seen of Logan despite the game already having a release date.

2. Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

Developer: Naughty Dog
Platform(s): PS5
Release date: TBC

It's not been too long since our first glimpse of the latest Naughty Dog game, but as one of the few new PS5 exclusives on my radar, I'm hoping to see Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet in June's State of Play showcase. I added this one to our Wildcard Wishlist because at the time of writing, it did feel like a longshot. But now that Sony has confirmed it will be showing off at least something this June, this pipedream inches closer to reality. All we have to go on at the moment is a gorgeous if brief cinematic trailer and some snippets of melee combat in-action, so perhaps it's time we get a closer look at the story and sci-fi world Naughty Dog has been cooking for us?

3. Phantom Blade Zero

Developer: S-Game
Platform(s): PC, PS5
Release date: September 9, 2026

Phantom Blade Zero couldn't come at a better time. Wuxia ARPGs are all the rage right now, and we're finally only months away from developer S-Game's stunning new hack-n-slasher. I feel like we've been previewing this one on GamesRadar+ for years now – my action-RPG megafan colleague has been raving about it – and it's still one of the most exciting new games coming to PS5 three years post-reveal. I'm a little sad I might not get to check it out yet on my Xbox, given its timed platform exclusivity on PS5, but that fact alone has me pretty confident that we'll be seeing more of Phantom Blade Zero during Sony State of Play on June 2, if not during SGF weekend itself!

4. Untitled John Wick game

Developer: Saber Interactive
Platform(s): PC, PS5, Xbox Series X
Release date: TBC

By far one of the coolest games at the last State of Play, I'm dying to see more of the new John Wick game in development at Saber Interactive. With Keanu Reeves back in action as the eponymous action hero, the trailer shown at Sony's last showcase gave us a taste of the chaos we can expect, from pens in eye-sockets to throwing henchmen around like ragdolls, and I have a feeling John Wick might show up again in time for SGF 2026. This might not be a Sony-published initiative, but third-party games are almost always featured among the best PS5 games in these State of Play broadcasts.

Well, that came out of nowhere. Insomniac Games just tweeted out the release date for Marvel's Wolverine, and it's officially arriving in September.

To be exact, the upcoming PS5 action romp is set to arrive on September 15. "Let's cut to the chase," Insomniac Games says on Twitter before promptly dropping the news like it's no big deal.

It's great news, of course, but bizarre given that the devs had the perfect opportunity to say exactly this during the massive PlayStation State of Play earlier this month. Well, this way certainly has the surprise factor, anyway – I had to double-check the announcement actually came from the official account.

To be fair, we were warned at the time not to expect anything Wolverine-shaped during the big Sony stream. Before the broadcast, Insomniac Games reiterated its plans to reveal more information in "Spring 2026," but I'll admit the decision to hold fire for just 12 days perplexes me.

With this, we also have more of an idea of what the latter half of the year is going to look like when it comes to the game release calendar. Mercifully (for both players and devs alike), Wolverine is nicely spaced out from GTA 6, which is set to arrive on November 19, in theory allowing Insomniac's upcoming game to have more time in the spotlight before Rockstar Games arrives on the scene. It's been a long time coming, after all – the Logan-centric game was first announced in September 2021, so it'll have been over five years by the time it actually arrives.

Today, Insomniac seemingly has no new trailer to share (unless you're counting the seven seconds of release date announcement), so there's still plenty to show off before that date comes – we'll just have to watch this space.

Marvel wanted the new Wolverine game to bring Logan back in "spectacular and visceral fashion," and Insomniac was "the perfect choice" after the Spider-Man games.

Insomniac Games says that the chances of Peter Parker swinging onto Xbox consoles are low, but the hit-making studio also said the same thing about a PC port of Marvel's Spider-Man once upon a time.

After one online fan's now-deleted tweet asked for an Xbox version of the open-world superhero romp, Insomniac simply replied saying a port is "not likely" to happen. Marvel's Spider-Man first came out as a PS4 exclusive in 2018 and has since been remastered for PC and PS5.

The studio's not revealing anything that's too shocking. After all, Marvel's Spider-Man is a game published by PlayStation Studios primarily as a way to get people to buy PlayStation consoles from Sony, the owner of PlayStation. So, no brainer.

Still, hopes for an Xbox port weren't – and probably still aren't – absolutely in the bin. Keep in mind Insomniac Games is also the same studio that firmly said almost nine years ago that the game would "never appear on Xbox or PC" because it's "a permanent PS4 exclusive publisher by Sony Interactive Entertainment," and that comment, err, hasn't really aged well.

There's also the fact that some Sony-owned games have broken containment in recent years, namely with Helldivers 2 and the upcoming Marathon on Xbox Series X|S, which would've been sort of unthinkable a generation ago, though PlayStation seems more willing to share its multiplayer toys with its biggest frenemy than its single-player blockbusters.

For now, Insomniac Games is set to continue its superhero universe with Marvel's Wolverine, coming sometime later this year, which is apparently a "darker and more brutal" game than you might expect from the studio. I guess it is about a rage-fuelled hairy man with claws.

Marvel's Spider-Man officially has its first working multiplayer mod, and it's probably the closest thing we've got to Insomniac's canceled Great Web project.

Insomniac has seemingly squashed hopes of Marvel's Wolverine appearing in this week's State of Play, saying we won't learn anything about the game until spring 2026.

Marvel's Wolverine seems like PlayStation's big game for 2026. I mean, there's Marathon, but from Sony's multiplayer track record, that may not last the year. After a brief teaser in 2021, we finally got a full, blood-soaked reveal last September, with the promise of a 2026 release date. And after missing The Game Awards, all eyes are on this week's PlayStation State of Play to see if the short king would return. But it sounds like he's staying in hiding just a bit longer.

Last night, almost as if it was to prepare players for the showcase, Insomniac posted a gif of Logan stabbing people with his knife hands (who really didn't look like they needed much more stabbing). And when a user responded "WHEN MORE INFO?" Insomniac crushed the hearts and souls of many by responding with a simple "Spring 2026."

Wolverine is from Canada, being the most important Canadian alongside Bret 'The Hitman' Hart. And according to the Canadian government website, spring starts on March 20th at 2:45pm UTC (so 9:45am ET | 6:45am PT). So if Sony announces a showcase on March 20th at 2pm UTC, you know what's going to close the show. Or we could see the announcement of a Wolverine-specific State of Play, like Sony did with Ghost of Yotei last year.

I often think it's a good idea to listen to developers when they say, "Hey, don't expect news in this showcase" (unless they're the Resident Evil developers during a showcase), but I mean… It's not like they would ruin the surprise. Plus, I'm Scottish, and the Celtic calendar has spring starting in February, so maybe it'll appear to any Celts in the audience. Or maybe I'm just hoping too much for something that probably won't happen.

With Wolverine set to elevate superhero gaming in 2026, here's the four features I want the most, and four I'm desperate to avoid

Nobody could have blamed Naughty Dog if it had continued to make Crash Bandicoot games after the '90s came to an end. After all, its four Crash PlayStation titles had sold in their millions and Crash was arguably the console's unofficial mascot. But as the PS2 was launched in 2000, the studio was working on something different for the new console.

Rather than a solo hero it created a pair of protagonists, in the form of precocious teenagers Jak and Daxter. Then instead of depicting these young heroes' world as one defined by good versus evil, like Crash Bandicoot's, Naughty Dog opted to create an environment that was shaped by mysterious, ancient beings called Precursors.

Just as important as the place they called home was that Jak and Daxter should have depth of character and believable reasons for their actions, as the writer/designer of their debut title Dan Arey explains. "I wanted Jak to have a purpose that wasn't just rescuing a princess or collecting coins, and then Daxter was our wonderful sidekick – he made everything a counterpoint or hilarious," Arey notes.

Dynamic duo

"We had started with this idea of a rich, beautiful world with some strange mystery behind it, and that was what the Precursors became.

"If you went to their island you found Dark Eco, which was energy with very special properties. We were telling you not to go to that island because there was Dark Eco there. Of course Jak, being a rebellious teenager, does just that, and then his best friend Daxter falls into this vat of Eco and becomes an Ottsel – a part otter/part weasel!"

Jak And Daxter's world required the talents of Naughty Dog's storytellers just as much as its level designers and artists so that its plot, gameplay and aesthetics had equal appeal. The studio could have considered these distinct disciplines separately, but instead it looked to how it could weave them together to form a greater whole, as Arey points out. "As the writer, as well as the game designer, I wanted to tell a story that had mystery and suspense," Arey reasons.

"A term we used was 'Narrative as reward', which is that the narrative itself was part of the joy of the game. This was a world that had to be explored, and you were going to have to figure out what Eco was and who the Precursors were. Then because we were an art-centric studio there was a constant push to find out what the most beautiful thing was that we could pull off on the PlayStation 2."

A precursor to success

In order to make Jak and Daxter's first outing – The Precursor Legacy – as immersive as possible, an open-world mission-based structure was favoured over a hub world and spoke system like the Crash Bandicoot games had used.

This structure revolved around beautifully rendered non-player characters that Jak and Daxter would meet on their adventure. Their interactions played out in cutscenes that took inspiration from the very best animated movies rather than from anything seen in earlier games.

"We had invested pretty heavily in Crash's universe, and so we decided to do the same thing with Jak and Daxter," Arey comments. "We knew we wanted to go full open world at this point, or at least reasonably open, and we were hitting the PlayStation 2 where there could be more of that. We knew that we could go to the next level. So we basically made the villagers in The Precursor Legacy the 'keys' to the next place to visit. Back in those days nobody was expecting Pixar-level authenticity, but that was what we were gunning for."

Equal attention was being paid to The Precursor Legacy's gameplay as to its character designs. More specifically, three main collectables were devised: Eco of different colours, which gave Jak powers and affected inanimate objects; Precursor Orbs, which acted as the game's currency; and Power Cells, which were often the reward for completing missions. "We wanted to have some very specific resources in the game, and we wanted to separate their uses," Arey observes.

"Players typically went in the right direction if you did the right thing with them, and we used collectables a lot for that. You thought you were making a choice, but we were helping you along with collectables that led you in that direction. We also had natural barriers so that you didn't feel like you were coming to a stop because of an invisible wall. That was why that first level was on the ocean, so that there was a natural break there."

Second helpings

The glowing reviews and millions of sales accrued by Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy clearly validated the approach its designers had taken. Its stunning visuals and seamlessly open world were singled out as setting new standards, and as soon as it had shipped, work on a sequel called Jak 2 commenced. As Arey recollects, Jak was given an upgradeable weapon in the follow-up rather than relying on unarmed combat.

"The Morph Gun was really about what we did to introduce something that you were able to modify and change, but with it still being the same thing that you were comfortable with," Arey remembers. "We gave it different capabilities that used different variations of Eco, so the Eco fed right into that. The four Eco types were very specific, and we wanted to make sure that we leaned into that concept. So the Morph Gun was a central system of using Eco with color coding. It was also the idea that each mod was its own unique play experience."

The sprawling metropolis that was created for Jak 2 was equally unique. Haven City's streets were crowded with people and its skies were full of gravity-defying Zoomer craft. A radar-like system recommended where players could go next, but the city's open world allowed them full autonomy and freedom of movement. As Arey concedes, giving players this much choice gave the game's designers considerable challenges.

"Jak 2's open-world city was really complicated," Arey acknowledges. "It pushed every limit of the PlayStation 2 at the time. We had to design it multiple times because we had so much draw distance and so many polygons that we were having real trouble. We had to give it more of a zigzag layout, so the city streets were maze-like. We also tried to build a story like that. We wanted to have a space where you could go and meet people. It was so that it felt like a real place, within the limitations of the PlayStation 2 of course."

Efforts were also made to make Jak 2's titular protagonist seem like a real person, albeit one that lived in a world of mysterious forces. Experiments with these forces pre-game left Jak able to take on a dark and powerful form by claiming Eco from fallen foes. Naughty Dog then used the toll this took and the passing of time to shape its leading man.

"We always knew that we were going to explore Dark Eco further, so that was one of the reasons we played with that. It was all about exploring good and bad," Arey considers. "We were also one of the first studios to age our hero. We wanted to have Jak evolve, and for him to become this forever changed hero. So he got exposed to Dark Eco, and had to overcome the problems of that. We were also giving you a sense that there was real depth to this character because of his experiences, and that those experiences weren't always good."

Jakked up

Judging by the praise showered on Jak 2, and the vast numbers of copies it sold, it's fair to say that Jak's character development went down well. Work on a third Jak title – Jak 3 – began soon after Jak 2's release, with its desert environment, the Wasteland, playing a key part in its design. The Wasteland also fed into ideas that Arey had for taking Jak's story forward.

"We had this idea that there was this city out in the middle of the Wasteland," Arey ponders. "We knew we were going to do a lot of open-world driving, and we also wanted to have the story continue to evolve with Jak and the search for his identity. The thing about it was we needed a place for him to go, because he knew he didn't fit in. We wanted the Wasteland to look weathered and old. It told so much story just with that look, and it also made it different from other locations in Jak's world."

Building on the introduction of the Morph Gun in Jak 2, Jak 3 featured new gun mods including one that radiated a destructive wave around the spot where Jak was standing.

Arey considers this to be a more powerful version of the spinning kick that the hero had used ever since his debut in The Precursor Legacy, in that the two attacks achieved similar effects, albeit on different scales. "Evan Wells and myself designed most of the weapons in Jak 3," he reflects.

"Part of that was just what we had learned about 3D design; that 'area of effect' was your best friend, especially in a radius sense. You really needed to clear space around you, and you did that by using the Wave Concussor, but it was true even with the basic spin. It was all about controlling the space around you. In the worst case scenario you at least had to empty the space around you, and that was always something we wanted the player to feel empowered to do."

Go the the light

More empowerment came in the form of a third identity for Jak that gave him defensive and other non-violent abilities by drawing power from Light Eco.

Arguably the most exciting of these allowed him to slow down time for his enemies while he continued to move at his normal speed, as Arey explains. "We wanted to give you this idea of time manipulation and flying and a protection shield," he enthuses.

"We had seen how Insomniac had done Spyro, where you could leap and then glide, and I thought flying in Jak 3 would be fun. But Light Jak was really because we had Dark Jak before, so of course we had to have Light Jak. It let us ask what Light Eco was, and what were its special properties? So it was flying, protection and time manipulation. Time manipulation can be so powerful if you do it right, and we got to play around with that stuff."

In keeping with its predecessors, Jak 3 received plaudits from critics and players alike. In keeping with Naughty Dog's Crash Bandicoot trilogy, the third Jak platformer was followed by a racing game. Jak X retained the Wasteland from Jak 3 and built on the earlier game's driving challenges, it also channelled Mad Max, which was known as The Road Warrior in the US.

"Jak X gave me a wonderful opportunity to keep telling the story," Arey beams. "We had a Road Warrior feel in Jak 3, so I thought why not continue with that? We also had a proof of concept for Jak X already thanks to the driving sections in Jak 3. Any time we had a proof of concept that would give us a leg up for the next game we would use it. Also, we had already done Crash Team Racing, and it was very successful, so we thought we would have fun with Jak and get him out racing in the Wasteland."

One of the many differences between Jak X and Crash Team Racing was their approach to meters. Rather than a speed boost meter that filled based on the time your vehicle spent in the air, Jak X's Dark Eco meter filled as your car took or received damage, with the reward being a boost to your weapons.

"We had used Hang Time in Crash Team Racing, where the more air you got the more speed boost you got," Dan remarks. "So for Jak X it was just about how we could be different again. It was trying to be unique in the sense that it wasn't a speed boost meter. It was like an early version of a rage meter, because the more damage you took the more retribution you could give, so you could dump your frustration onto a competitor. I think that's always a fun way to soften some of the pain in a game."

Branching out

Novel features such as the Dark Eco meter and the sheer challenge offered by Jak X were recognised by reviewers when the game came out, as were its many modes and rich narrative.

A year later, Jak's wise-cracking sidekick Daxter received a solo PSP title produced by Ready At Dawn rather than Naughty Dog. Knowing how popular Daxter was, and having a high opinion of the character and the actor who voiced him, Arey was more than happy to be involved in this latest project's development.

"Daxter was a hugely successful character, he had become such a fan favourite!" Arey exclaims. "We would go to conventions and stuff, and Daxter would be all people would talk about. He was voiced by Max Casella. I did a lot of work trying to find the right person for that job. I would write jokes and then Max would come in, and we would just let him run free. So we knew Daxter was important and decided to do something with him, and why not do it for the PSP? Because it was an amazing 'anywhere' gaming platform."

In order to ramp up the comedy value of Daxter's titular PSP outing, the short-tempered hero was given an occupation where he would constantly feel ridiculed. It was also a role that got players using all manner of fun-to-use equipment and vehicles. "We were thinking since he bugged people that it would be funny if he was a bug exterminator!" Arey jokes.

"But it was really just down to a brainstorm at Ready At Dawn, we were just having fun. Everything about Daxter was the economy of him being bigger than life and the silly little things he was. So we made him crawl through tight spaces, and that was indignant for him. That was what we wanted, for him to be constantly complaining about whatever he had to do! It also gave the player gadgets, and gadgets make for a good game."

This assessment was agreed with by critics, many of whom scored Daxter's PSP adventure near-perfect marks. Three years later, the Jak And Daxter series continued with The Lost Frontier by High Impact Games, which Arey also worked on. One of his lingering memories is of Daxter being given a dark, monstrous alter ego that was inspired by a classic animated short.

"There's a Warner Brothers cartoon with a little chicken that turns into a monster, like Jekyll and Hyde. That was the concept behind Dark Daxter," Dan reveals. "We loved the idea of a puffed-up mega Daxter, where for once he gets what he wants, which is to be badder and tougher. Of course, Dark Daxter had to happen after we had Dark Jak and Light Jak. His attacks were designed to change the player's response. For the Frenzy Attack we had this idea of store and release, which is a really powerful way to make the human mind respond to something."

Flight of fancy

Aside from Daxter Hulking-out, Lost Frontier took the idea of piloting gliders and Zoomers from the earlier games, as well as vehicle challenges from the Crash Bandicoot series, and rolled them all into flight combat challenges.

These pitted Jak and Daxter against Sky Pirates in a part of Jak's world that players had never seen before. Similarly to Dark Daxter, this aspect of the game took influence from classic animations, but it was also informed by an earlier Naughty Dog title.

"Going all the way back to Crash Bandicoot we had flying in that," Arey reminisces. "The idea of Jak and Daxter being in the skies and being further out in their world was also really beautiful, and Sky Pirates were just a cool idea. I just love that kind of world, whether it's Miyazaki's animations or whatever. I just love anachronistic cool flight. So it was a beautiful theme, and we wanted to go with something powerful and new."

Although it was well received when it launched, Lost Frontier marked the end of the series, although remastered PS3 versions of the original trilogy and emulation-based PS4 versions of the first four titles followed. When considering the Jak And Daxter games now, Arey cites a convergence of talent and tech for their enduring popularity, and notes their designers' desire to engage the emotions of those that played them.

"I still miss the Jak And Daxter world to this day, because I think that it was just so rich," he laments. "I loved those days. It was a beautiful time where technology and creativity meshed so well. I really do rate the gameplay in the series, especially the dynamic difficulty adjustments. We wanted people to win and we wanted them to enjoy themselves. Even when they died we wanted it to be funny! We wanted them to feel something special was happening, no matter what, so that they had an emotional reason to be playing every level."

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"Skills for kills, Agent. Skills for kills." That minor line from Crackdown 1 has been burned into my brain for nearly two decades, a strange little earworm that isn't even a particularly significant comment in the game itself. Sometimes this NPC bark triggers when you empty three boxes of LMG ammo into a jaywalker. Sometimes it happens when you pick up a burning eighteen-wheeler and huck it down the street, smearing panicked criminals into the tarmac. And sometimes it happens when you run down a drug dealer with a batmobile, slap a sticky bomb on the mangled corpse and kick the explosive carcass at his closest friends, turning him into an improvised payload.

Perhaps it's less the line itself that sticks in my mind, and more the surreal and spectacular events that always prompt it. Either way, I can't deny that Crackdown left an impression on me as one of those damn good times of the mid 2000s. But eighteen years and two sequels later, Crackdown went from one of the hottest Xbox 360 IPs, standing alongside icons like Fable 2 and Halo 3, to a minor Microsoft footnote. What the hell happened?

Lawful evil

I couldn't get that question out of my mind, which of course meant I had to replay all three games to get some context. Well, call it two and a half – I couldn't get through the third and final game before boredom drove me away, which itself is illuminating.

Crackdown 1 is practically a relic these days, coming as it does from the long-gone past of 2007. But I'm pleased to say it's still a good time, in a rudimentary, arcadey, rough-around-the-edges sort of way, though missing some of the quality of life improvements we've come to expect from open worlds, and definitely, er, showing its age when it comes to portrayals of certain ethnicities.

That being said, it's also a game that sits alongside Prototype and God of War 3, as you are clearly a monster through-and-through with absolutely no attempt at nuance, complexity or redemption. The notion that a crime wave can only be stopped by an army of lab-grown supercops Hulk-smashing people with heavy ordnance seems pretty suspect from the start, and during the end credits your handler cheerfully acknowledges that The Agency has always been out for world domination, a goal made easy now you've cleared the streets of any resistance.

A nicely ominous ending! Which made it a bit weird that 2010's Crackdown 2 basically sweeps that whole angle to the side and becomes a zombie apocalypse game, broken into a day/night cycle wherein you fight terrorists during office hours and hordes of mindless mutants by moonlight, with The Agency's shadowy machinations reduced to the occasional passing comment and some optional audio logs.

And when it comes to gameplay, the best parts of Crackdown 2 are largely just what was left over from Crackdown 1, with the zombie hordes doing little to elevate old material and just becoming an endless morass to mindlessly pour ammunition into.

Reviews were shruggingly flat, and in hindsight, I really can't argue. In fact, I remember a sixteen year old me taking it back to the store for a refund a couple of weeks after buying it, more disappointed than cross.

But disappointment would become frustration with 2019's Crackdown 3, which took a glacial 5 years to come out after being announced at E3 2014, worrying fans with repeated delays and rumors of development hell.

When it did come out, the twin gimmicks of destructible environments and Terry Crews did little to foster interest, and when all was said and blown up, Crackdown 3 felt even less innovative than the previous game. For me personally, the increasingly loud, cartoonish tone felt like an abrasive attempt to mimic Borderlands, a task so ill-advised that even Borderlands itself can't work out how to successfully pull off that tone these days.

If you could endure it to the end, a post-credits sequel tease would probably be Crackdown 3's funniest moment. Ultimately, twelve years later, we were still struggling with the same flaws we had forgiven the first game for, now magnified by time and exposure.

Call my Agent

Some franchises flopping makes perfect sense. Remember Ryse: Son of Rome? No, I bet you don't, as "Call of Duty: Asterix Edition" was never going to be an easy sell to the world. But Crackdown? Half GTA, half superhero sandbox, with a beloved first entry that ranks as one of the great Xbox 360 titles, backed by the raw wealth and power of Microsoft? How is this not one of the strongest franchises out there today?

Some might say the series is dead and to leave it be, and they may very well be right. But even now, as Xbox struggles to formulate a solid lineup of major first party IP to win back audiences after misfires and poor press, it feels like the moment to bring back Crackdown with some real effort and innovation behind it. And the reason I say that is simple: Helldivers 2 exists.

Helldivers 2 is a game all about over-the-top action, orchestrated by helmeted goons throwing themselves around. It's a satire where we effectively play as the bad guys, working for an obviously fascist government. It's all about blowing things up to send both enemies and allies flying, revelling in the spectacle while still recognising the dark context behind it. And people love it.

And besides, when it comes to Crackdown's tones and themes, the subjects of government authoritarianism and the brutal excesses of law enforcement are just as topical as they were in 2007 – more so, in fact.

Not to mention that more broadly "the big superhero open world game" is a conspicuous gap in Xbox's lineup. I doubt it would match the success of Sony and Insomniac's Spider-Man games any time soon, but I can't help but notice that Microsoft hasn't had anything like this since… Well, Crackdown 3, and Sunset Overdrive before that.

Ultimately though, it would have to be a new game. Part of Crackdown's problem as an ongoing series was that it never really worked out how to get past the shadow of the first entry, refusing to evolve with the rest of the world.

A new Crackdown game would need to take the foundation of what was fun twenty years ago – bouncing around a cool city with a rocket launcher on your back and a souped-up Bond car in your garage – and rebuild that foundation for the modern day. You can't half-ass something like this, or fall back on outdated systems. As the man said: skills for kills.

Check out the litany of upcoming Xbox Series X games we're waiting on in 2026... sadly, a new Crackdown isn't one of them (yet?)

A modder has managed to run PlayStation classic Spyro The Dragon on N64 hardware. Just don't expect a full version to be released any time soon.

After one modder committed the sin of putting Super Mario 64 onto the PS1, the '90s console wars are back in full force. And in retaliation for this major betrayal, the N64 faction have taken one of PlayStation's icons for their own. Or in more normal terms, days after Super Mario 64 was shown running on PS1, a separate modder has released a video showing 1998's Spyro the Dragon running on the N64.

As spotted by Time Extension, Frogbull – who has previously created bizarro projects like bringing Crash Bandicoot and Metal Gear Solid to Sega Saturn – released a video showing off the original Spyro game running on N64. The video in question only shows off the opening hub area, with Spyro roaming around the green plains, but much like Mario's work-in-progress demo, it's missing animations and other assets.

However, unlike the Mario 64 project – which came with a demo – Frogbull explains in the description of the video, "Spyro 64 is an old project I've had for quite some time, basically my first steps into N64 homebrew."

And while they aren't intending to work on this to completion, Frogbull does give a promising update: "I recently learned that a very promising and advanced decompilation project has been started by Altro50, so this homemade attempt at recreating Spyro on the Nintendo 64 doesn't have much purpose anymore as there's a good chance an actual port will end up coming."

Undertale demo is transformed in "faithful" fan-made Game Boy Color demake, and you can play it right now

The formula for the perfect Wolverine game is as hard to crack as adamantium. Those with Logan as the main character have ranged from "okay, not bad" to "please make it stop". He's been in some great games, but always as a supporting character. Take the ol' canucklehead out of the fantastic Marvel's Midnight Suns, for example, and the impact on story and gameplay would be negligible. We've got every reason to believe, however, that Insomniac will finally give him the game he deserves with Marvel's Wolverine.

"Been fightin' longer than I can remember," he growls resignedly at the beginning of the recent gameplay trailer. There's then plenty of ultraviolence to demonstrate this (he literally rips a guy in half), and it's this level of character-appropriate gore that has caught the attention of, and sparked hope in, many fans. There's plenty more to read into however, not least the words and tone of Logan's voiceover that sits in stark contrast to the energy and rage of what's happening on screen ("Death's always waitin'. Just not for me").

He sounds tired. This, too, is true to the character. Not only is Wolverine practically unkillable, he ages incredibly slowly, and as a result has seen friends and lovers lost to time as he is forced to continue, physically unchanged. This makes me wonder whether the story might take place over years rather than weeks or months. It's something of a globetrotting adventure – Madripoor, Canada, and Japan have been confirmed – and the Wolverine at the beginning of the trailer seems animalistic in a way that the yellow-suit-wearing, motorbike-riding version we see later does not.

Claw blimey

It's already been confirmed that Marvel's Wolverine takes place in the same universe as Insomniac's Spider-Man games, so we now officially have a Marvel Gaming Universe (MGU, anyone?). I think they're playing the long game here – I don't expect Spider-Man to turn up halfway through Logan's adventure and join him through to the end – but I am kind of expecting Peter Parker to make a post credit cameo. Without spoiling too much for those unaware, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 ends in a way that, if you squint and use a little imagination, could feasibly lead to Peter leaving New York and bumping into Logan somewhere.

Spider-Man and Wolverine are wildly different characters with very different temperaments, but a future game featuring them both would work because of, rather than despite, this. After all, they've worked together plenty of times in the comics world. The MGU plans extend far beyond these two however, as can be seen if you take another look at the trailer. It's revealed that Omega Red and Mystique will feature, and I'll bet you a spandex costume of your choice that there will be more villains – and perhaps heroes – to come. The confirmation of Tokyo as a location intrigues me. Could we see Lady Deathstrike? Logan's son Daken, even?

Mystique only makes a brief appearance in the trailer, but the way that she is framed and animated in the few seconds of a fight scene we see leads me to believe that she'll be a playable character. The fact that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 features playable characters beyond Peter and Miles only strengthens my belief, and in fact, I'll go so far as to say that we'll even get to step into the blood-soaked shoes of Omega Red, even if only briefly. Insomniac let us have a little go living out our Venom fantasies, after all.

Hulk/Logan

Part of what Marvel's Wolverine will set out to do, I think, is solidify the idea of an MGU and continue to normalize the idea of multiple playable characters. I expect this to pay off big time in the future, with an Insomniac X-Men, Avengers, or other big league team-up game. The very presence of a sentinel at the end of the trailer serves as a reminder that the MGU is populated by an untold number of mutants, and opens the door to an enormous number of related characters.

The other thing the game will want to do, of course, is tell a great Wolverine story while making him feel authentic. This poses a huge, vital question that neither the reveal trailer nor the gameplay trailer answers: how? His skeleton is coated with an unbreakable metal, he rapidly heals any wound, and his claws can tear through almost anything. The worst mistake a superhero game can make is to sacrifice the power fantasy in the name of gameplay mechanics utterly unsuited to it (looking at you, Marvel's Avengers and Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League).

Balancing the powerful nature of a character with the need for some level of challenge is an incredibly difficult task, but I feel confident saying Insomniac is a safe pair of hands here. Their Spider-Man games demonstrated that they know and understand the characters they've been trusted with, and can find a way to make them a joy to play as without hollowing out their abilities.

Wolverine will need another level of creativity given that he can't die, but I trust this team to do it. An additional technique, of course, is to feature gameplay sections where you take control of a character that doesn't enjoy the advantages of the main protagonist. Insomniac landed on a winning formula with Marvel's Spider-Man 2; I see no reason for them to drop it entirely for their next game, and I doubt they do, either.

Check out our best PS5 games ranking for what to play next!

As people who hate fun keep telling me, tying a tablecloth round my neck like a cape and jumping short distances while shouting "Look at me I'm flying" before hitting the ground doesn't make me a superhero. Marvel's Spider-Man 2 does, though – or at least, it brings me as close as I'm ever going to get. It was, and still is, the best superhero simulator the industry has to offer.

It's not such a great game because it looks pretty… but damn, it does look pretty. Amazing even, you might say. This probably shouldn't come as a surprise considering the fact that it has Sony's money and support behind it, but boy oh boy has that money and support paid off. Few PS5 games come close to matching Spider-Man 2 for looks, especially if you have a TV capable of running it in its full 4K or 120hz glory. Want something to show off the capabilities of your console that is somehow going up rather than down in value? This should be your first stop.

Caught in a web

If 120hz isn't an option for you, you can still go for 60fps, and you should absolutely take it. Sometimes, I don't mind sacrificing frames for fidelity, especially if it's something horror-flavored like Silent Hill f or Alan Wake 2. But it's hard to overstate how integral fluidity is to the experience here, and you need the frame rate to support it.

Insomniac had already seemed to nail the feel of swinging through the air as the web-swinger in the first Marvel's Spider-Man, but by the time the first full sequel launched, it was better than ever. Thwip a webline to arc through the air, launch yourself forwards, thwip another, pull a few air tricks, pull yourself to a launch point to hurl yourself upwards once again, whip out the new web wings to glide and perhaps take advantage of Wind Tunnels to zoom forwards; before diving to build up speed for your next webline.

Soaring through the air above the streets of New York like an arachnid-styled pendulum is an incredible feeling. There's fast travel to unlock, but I honestly don't understand why you might want to use it.

Combat, too, is all about having a smooooth ride. It owes much to the Batman: Arkham series in terms of building up one long combo and dancing from one foe to the next, but both Spider-Men are far more athletic heroes, which is reflected appropriately in how they dispense violent justice.

There's nothing quite like launching a bad guy into the air, leaping up to join them so you can hurl them back down to the ground, pulling yourself to a distant enemy in an instant to start punching them in the face instead, then using a gadget or ability to push back the group that is now trying to crowd you – before using a finisher to instantly take down the nearest goon stupid enough to step up. Fights are a rush.

Air Miles

Perhaps, like me, you bought the game at launch and rinsed it of trophies in less than a week (something I almost never do, by the way). Well since then, New Game Plus has been added, giving you a brand new reason to come back. As well as one final trophy for finishing NG+ on any difficulty, 'Ultimate' character levelling and new unlockable suits have been added. Honestly, though? I just loved playing through the story again, and was once more so taken with the movement and the combat, I found myself drifting back to side content even though I'd already unlocked all the rewards. This 2023 game is one of my 2025 GOTY contenders.

Going back through the story, I was reminded of two things. Firstly, how good the acting is. Nadji Jeter for example again gives a phenomenal performance as Miles Morales, and Yuri Lowenthal remains my favorite Peter Parker version of Spider-Man in any medium (there, I said it). The ever-reliable Laura Bailey makes a great MJ, and don't you dare forget that the sadly departed horror legend Tony Todd makes an appearance as Venom. He plays the character perfectly, and makes a huge impact despite the relatively small role. But don't take my word for it. Just ask his BAFTA nomination.

The other thing that resurfaced in the murky waters of my memory was the depth of the story. Look, it's not worthy or enormously complex, but it echoes uncomfortable aspects of the human condition that you might not expect from a superhero romp. It is in part a story about self-awareness, legacy, and getting a handle on your emotions. Sure, it's also in part a story about one man who turns into a giant lizard and another who only wears scraps of leather and fur so he can show everybody how apocalyptically ripped he is, but that means there's something for everyone.

If Marvel's Spider-Man 2 somehow passed you by, you'll find that it's every bit as impressive today as it was two years ago. If you've already put dozens of hours in – heck, even if you went through New Game Plus as soon as it was added – I'd still urge you to reinstall it and play again. There's a literally endless parade of crimes in this digital New York, and I guarantee you'll look and feel incredibly cool on your way to foil them.

Check out our best PS5 games ranking for what to play next!

After making three Spider-Man games, Insomniac is now working with Marvel and Sony on an adventure starring the mighty Wolverine. Although the adamantium-clawed hero is a different speed to the wallcrawler, there was no studio better suited to the job, according to management.

Speaking to Game Informer about Logan's new video game, Haluk Mentes, the general manager of Marvel Games, reveals how the Ratchet & Clank studio became everyone's number one choice. "As is usually the case, once we complete a project together, they, too, become 'Marvel,'" he tells the outlet.

"Marvel's Wolverine with our dear friends at Insomniac Games is perhaps the epitome of this philosophy," he continues. "We have been working together for more than a decade and developed such a shorthand across multiple Marvel's Spider-Man games that when the time finally came to bring Logan back in spectacular and visceral fashion, it was obvious to everyone on our team that Insomniac was the perfect choice."

Rightly so, as Insomniac's three Spidey video games thus far have been miraculous achievements. The tactile web swinging combined with the well-crafted plotlines that dig right into Miles Morales and Peter Parker's rogues' gallery, and the stunning recreation of New York City, place them all among the finest releases of the last ten years.

The gameplay trailer revealed during September's State of Play shows Wolverine is utilizing a lot of the same strengths. Combos and bouncing between targets are fundamental to the combat, and we appear to be getting multiple perspectives via Mystique, while other X-Men heroes and villains show up throughout.

"It was our shared culture and values that brought us together, and we're so proud to continue collaborating for many years to come," Mentes finishes. Marvel's Wolverine arrives in 2026, then with any luck, we'll have Spider-Man 3 soon after.

Marvel's Wolverine box art "doesn't look like our past games," according to Spider-Man studio Insomniac, which worked with a comic artist who has a brutal history with the character for the cover

We finally got a proper look at Marvel's Wolverine during the PlayStation State of Play for September 2025, and that included a first glimpse at the box art for the upcoming PS5 game. Developer Insomniac seems especially proud of that cover, as the studio took a little extra time during yesterday's presentation to talk about how it represents both the character and the tonal shift away from its previous games.

"We're pretty excited about the artwork that we're using on the cover," as Marvel Games executive producer Eric Monacelli explains in a behind the scenes video. "It's dynamic, it's rough edged. You notice it doesn't look like our past games. It has a sense of urgency and forward movement and rage and fury, and that's Wolverine."

"Our cover bridges bold simplicity with the expressive energy of comics to further accentuate Wolverine’s rugged, complex personality," as Insomniac senior community manager Aaron Jason Espinoza adds on the PlayStation Blog. This post also reveals that the box art was "designed in collaboration" with comic artist Jock.

As with many comic artists, Jock has a prolific list of credits, ranging from 2000 AD runs on series like Judge Dredd to Marvel and DC runs on characters as notable as Batman. He has an especially notable credit when it comes to Wolverine, though, as he did cover art for all 15 issues of the 2012 series Wolverine Max. That run is notable for featuring a whole lot of extreme violence – not far off from the hyperviolent tone we've seen in the trailer for Marvel's Wolverine.

Here are all the villains in the Marvel's Wolverine trailer, and 3 we hope to see.

Insomniac Games has revealed who will be playing Wolverine in its upcoming game, with Spartacus and Gears of War actor Liam Mcintyre taking on the role.

Marvel's Wolverine had its reveal party at last night's PlayStation State of Play showcase, with us getting our first look at gameplay for Insomniac's next Marvel game. And while it gave us a disappointing "Fall 2026" release date (meaning the game will have gone about five years from reveal to release), it does look like a solid action game in the vein of Marvel's Spider-Man.

We also got to meet the game's Wolverine, with Liam McIntyre (who played JD Fenix in Gears of War alongside a ton of film and TV roles) taking up the mantle, who called it "one of the greatest honors of my life, one of the biggest responsibilities I've ever had, and one of the coolest things I've ever got to do."

During the showcase creative director Marcus Smith said "that level of acting and being able to just deliver that performance with believability across both spectrums was something [...] we all agreed: He's the one. We don't need to see anyone else." And despite Wolverine being famously Canadian, it turns out Australians are the best at playing the character, apparently.

McIntyre confirmed that he's actually played some of Marvel's Wolverine, saying "there was this one section of the game I got to try. It was just visceral, immediate, and so incredibly satisfying, and I was like, 'this is gonna be amazing.'" And while we're unlikely to hear the lead voice actor for a game say "it's kinda mid yeah" the passion and description given by McIntyre does give me somewhat high hopes that the combat will be good.

Marvel's Wolverine dev says it's "darker and more brutal than you might expect from Insomniac," and after seeing the "claws up through the face" scene the director worried was "too far," I'm sure getting that vibe.

Eagle-eyed Marvel fans might be able to spot "hints to other characters" in the new Marvel's Wolverine trailer.

Last night, Marvel's Wolverine made a stunning reappearance during the State of Play broadcast, with a brutal, gore-filled trailer reintroducing the project to the world after early development footage was leaked in 2023. Now, if you're likely to be poring over this trailer for the next 12 months until the game's Fall 2026 release date, you might be able to pick some hints to a wider Marvel cast than appears at first sight.

As well as Logan (and a Sentinel), the trailer shows off classic X-Men figure Mystique doing some of her quintessential shapeshifting. There's also a look at Omega Red, who while not exactly a huge-name villain, has crossed paths with the Wolverine and co on a number of occasions. But those two are far from the only characters we're likely to get a closer look at.

During yesterday's trailer, creative director Marcus Smith said that "it's always nice teasing the depth and the amount of characters that we'll be seeing in the game," teasing that "there are some hints to other characters that fans of Wolverine will recognize for sure."

I'll admit that I've not been over the trailer with a fine-enough comb to work those out just yet, but I've got my fingers crossed for Sabretooth. Arguably Wolverine's greatest foe, it seems fitting that in a game where Logan's apparently appearing without the rest of the X-Men by his side, we'll be focusing more on his enemies than the wider group's foes. And while Insomniac promises (and seems to be delivering on) the idea that Marvel's Wolverine will be "darker and more brutal) than its other games, Marvel's Spider-Man games do give us something of a template to work on – expect some big-name enemies, as well as some deeper cuts.

I might not have done my homework, but our comics expert George has been hard at work documenting all the villains in the Marvel's Wolverine trailer.

The new Marvel's Wolverine gameplay trailer starts off with a bloodied up Logan lifting a human-looking cyborg up and impaling it with his retractable claws, and later in the trailer he uses those claws like a fork on another cyborg's face, going up and through the jaw and out of the top of its head. There's lots and lots of blood, naturally.

That's why, when I saw Insomniac senior community manager Aaron Jason Espinoza describe the game in a new PlayStation Blog as sometimes being "darker and more brutal than you might expect from Insomniac," my first thought was: you aren't kidding, brother!

Going off the gameplay trailer, you can definitely still tell this is from the same people that made Marvel's Spider-Man. In Espinoza's words, it features the same "fast, fluid, and ferocious combat; exhilarating, action-packed set pieces; robust accessibility features; and a gripping story that taps into the core tenets of one of the most compelling comic book characters of all-time."

Still, I was genuinely shocked watching that trailer, especially the claws in face part. And apparently, even one of the developers working on the game was hesitant to put that extremely graphic image in the game.

"There's a part in the trailer where Logan jumps down, and then he does the claws up through the face," says project director Jess Reiner-Reed in a new behind-the-scenes video. "That one I thought, maybe was gonna be taking it too far, but I am so glad that we have it. It looks fantastic."

It's true, Wolverine is an extremely violent anti-hero, known for putting his giant claws to use liberally and indiscriminately. That puts Insomniac in the position of having to create some truly disturbing visuals or be forever branded cowards by comic fans, and at this point it looks like they delivered on this front.

"The question that comes up a lot to us at Insomniac Games is, 'are you going to make a Wolverine game that is as violent, as visceral, as the character in the comics?" says creative director Marcus Smith, before showing a montage of similarly gruesome kill shots. The answer, he says through these images, is a resounding 'yes.'

Marvel's Wolverine is due to launch on PS5 in 2026.

All the villains in the Marvel's Wolverine trailer, and 3 we hope to see

Marvel's Wolverine, the next superhero action game from Marvel's Spider-Man developer Insomniac, is coming to PS5 in fall 2026.

The Marvel's Wolverine release date was announced in a new trailer released at tonight's PlayStation State of Play September 2025 live show. The trailer reintroduces the long-silent action game following an enormous leak that saw pre-release materials spill onto the internet in 2023.

Insomniac worked with Marvel Games on the project, and the new trailer is a smorgasbord of Marvel characters. In addition to the Marvel roster, the game seems to run up and down the world, with Wolverine taking to Madripoor, Canada, and Japan.

"Become a living weapon," the latest trailer blurb entreats. "As he searches for answers about his past, Wolverine will do whatever it takes – unleashing brutal claw combat, violent rage, and relentless determination – to cut through the mystery of the man he used to be."

A new blog post from Insomniac senior community manager Aaron Jason Espinoza adds: "We aim to deliver the ultimate Wolverine fantasy built on Insomniac staples like fast, fluid, and ferocious combat; exhilarating, action-packed set pieces; robust accessibility features; and a gripping story that taps into the core tenets of one of the most compelling comic book characters of all-time."

The trailer is considerably more gruesome than Insomniac's usual releases; one developer praised the detailed "blood tech" made for the game, while another said the whole game delivers "a level of detail that we've never been able to do before."

In the reveal, Insomniac stressed that Marvel's Wolverine plays differently to its previous games, and not just because Wolverine doesn't shoot webs out of his wrists. Likewise, one developer touched on the newly revealed cover art, which deliberately "doesn't look like our past games."

More details will be released in spring 2026, the developer teased, seemingly hinting at the game's own dedicated showcase. Marvel's Wolverine is now positioned as one of the big PS5 exclusives of 2026, filling roughly the same time slot as Ghost of Yotei this year, so Sony is sure to pull out all the stops.

Here are all the other upcoming Marvel games, from the new Iron Man game to Marvel's Wolverine.

Right now, you can still buy the Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Collector's Edition set for the PS5.

You know the one that comes with a digital copy for one of the best PS5 games, and that massive 19-inch Venom statue, where he's battling it out with Peter Parker and Miles Morales while the creepy symbiote tendrils menacingly lift him into the air? Well, it's available for $229.99 at PS Direct despite the fact that the game launched way back in October 2023, and I'm trying to use all my strength and willpower not to buy it.

It's not the price that's putting me off, but the struggle of fitting 19 inches worth of spectacular Spidey goodness into my life. There's only so much shelf space I can spare for more Marvel merch, and that's a whole lot of Venom that I'll need to accommodate, tendrils in all.

Collector's Editions don't usually stick around for long. Weeks, and in some cases even days, after a big game's release, you'll only going to find them in the window displays at GameStop amongst other over-priced PS5 accessories. or copies across every second-hand auction site you can imagine in the US. So I'm shocked this is still available to buy.

Shocked but happy, as it's a PlayStation Direct exclusive, I remember the difficulty of finding this edition in stock shortly after launch. Finding the Venom statue anywhere but eBay at the time got so stressful that it's why I stuck with a physical copy of just the game instead.

It didn't disappoint, and I have the Platinum trophy to prove it. But as a big Spider-Man nerd, I can't pretend I wasn't thinking about the 19-inch Venom statue, steelbook case, and all the in-game suits and goodies I could have had access to, had I had the collector's edition been available online for a little while longer.

I'm not sure if PlayStation Studios and Insomniac Games just made an extra batch of Venom statues to appease Spidey fans like me who missed them the first time around, or a fresh box of collector's editions was found by a PS Direct staff member at the back of a warehouse somewhere, but I'm glad they're now more readily available.

Collector's editions of games being this exclusive commodity has never sat right with me. They tend to be pretty pricey, and their short lifespan on the digital shelves makes them even more prone to being exclusive for those with the cash to spare. I've even pre-ordered a collector's edition (the Clock Tower Rewind Collector's Edition by Limited Run Games) purely as I knew I'd not be able to buy it for its retail price in the future - and I still feel gross about it.

Having them still in stock years after launch, like with this Spider-Man 2 edition, gives Spidey fans with smaller budgets a chance to save and grab the statue for themselves, with the added bonus of not having to fork money over to greedy resellers, and I'm all for it.

An MSRP of $229.99 / £219.99 is still going to be out of a lot of Spider-Man fan's budgets, of course. Especially as I'm sure most fans have a copy of the Insomniac Spidey sequel on PS5 (or even Steam) by now, and don't fancy forking out over $200 for another. However, it is the accessibility that I'm a fan of, and I only wish collector's editions for other big PS5 games were still easy to find in 2025.

Now Sony, can you please restock the Marvel's Spider-Man 2 DualSense controller too? If the 30th anniversary DualSense controller can get a restock, why not Spider-Man?

• View all PS5 game deals at Amazon
• Miles Morales Ultimate Edition: $69.99 $49.28 at Amazon

Picking up one of the best PS5 controllers, the best PS5 headsets, and one of the best SSDs for PS5 can help make your web-slinging adventures even better on your Sony console.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was one of the earliest PS5 exclusives, dropping around 6 months after the console first launched, but Insomniac Games has revealed that despite all of that time passing, the final Easter egg that was hinted at less than a year after the game released was never found by players. So instead of waiting even longer, Insomniac has decided to show it off to celebrate the game's fourth anniversary.

All we knew up until now was that the Easter egg was found in Zurkie's Gastropub, a location you frequent during Rift Apart's campaign, and considering that area is already filled with Easter eggs in the form of nods to past games, it made things a bit harder. During the Insomniac Live show on Twitch (with the clip since posted to Insomniac's Twitter account), the game's senior designer, Grant Parker walked through the Easter egg.

So before you go into Zurkie's, there are two signs telling you that there are no weapons allowed and somehow players were meant to figure out that you need to shoot the left one five times, the right one four times, and then shoot the left one 13 more times, which results in nothing. There's no indication that anything has happened. But if you head into the pub and walk up the mechanical bull, you'll be shown a prompt saying "Hold L2 to Ride Mechanical Bull."

Holding L2 will then put you into a minigame where you have to try your best to stay on the bull. Except it's clearly unfinished, as Rivet is seen standing beside the bull while another version of herself is t-posing on the bull, which has no animations at all and simply clips through the floor as it moves around. However Parker says it was "just something fun that I thought I'd leave in the game" knowing that no one would find it… until now, obviously.

Split Fiction players defeat secret challenge so tough that some of the devs themselves can "barely" complete it, and get rewarded with the promise of an early peek at the director's next game.

A Marvel's Spider-Man 2 player has warned others about the dangers of wearing the Symbiote suit in the game's first mission.

As highlighted by the Twitter users below, there's a very real consequence if you play Marvel's Spider-Man 2 New Game Plus and take on Sandman while wearing a specific suit. If you've already played Insomniac's most recent title, you're probably all too familiar with how much sand gets sent flying around when going up against the Marvel villain. What many may not have discovered yet, though, is that the Symbiote suit is quite the sand magnet. 

I like to imagine that the Symbiote suit has the same texture as those squishy alien egg toys, which means the sand that's flicked off Sandman during the boss battle sticks to it very easily. The end result resembles something very different from sand or Symbiote and has got Marvel's Spider-Man 2 fans cheering on a new hero: Poop-Man. 

"Don't play #SpiderMan2 new game plus first mission in the Symbiote suit because the sand goes onto the suit and makes peter turn into sh*t man," one Twitter user has warned fellow players. The picture included in the tweet pretty much speaks for itself. "This is why [Insomniac] held off NG+ for so long, they didn't want us to find out about poop man," another fan responded to the tweet. 

Things get even funnier in the tweet's reply: "If they patch out Peter Pooper I'm not playing the DLC," the same Twitter user threatens. Others have had similar reactions, sharing things like: "This is the main reason you play ng+" and "Spooderman." Although not the most flattering comparison, we're sure Insomniac doesn't mind if it means more people are trying out New Game Plus, even if it is just to meet Poop-Man. 

In other (less poop-related) Spider-Man news: Despite the sequel's ending, Peter Parker's voice actor doesn't think we've seen the last of his character.

Find out what else Peter Parker and Miles Morales can wear with our Marvel's Spider-Man 2 suits guide. 

Steam’s Winter Sale is absolutely packed with savings on games big and small. But the more obscure or overlooked gems are often stuck beneath the pesky algorithm. To save your wrist from the pain of endlessly scrolling, we’ve compiled ten games you’ve probably never played before, all on sale for under $10. 

Let’s start with Before The Green Moon ($6), a low-stakes, low-poly farming sim that’s “set in a small community at the base of a space elevator” that goes to the titular moon. Think Stardew Valley but with PSX aesthetics and an alien world. Before The Green Moon comes courtesy of Turnfollow, the developers behind Wide Ocean Big Jacket, so you can also expect some incredibly human moments thrown in, too. 

Next up is Cursorblade ($4), a game that first caught my attention with a great Next Fest demo. Essentially, the game takes Vampire Survivor’s roguelike formula but casts you as the titular pointy cursor. Enemies stay stationary and it’s then on you to attack when appropriate, threading between projectiles, blobs, and flames to strike.

Before Insomniac Games swung into action with Spider-Man, the studio cut its teeth on Sunset Overdrive ($5), the vibrant shooter that turns an urban open world into a platforming paradise. Sticking with blockbusters, survival horror sequel The Evil Within 2 ($6) is at its lowest price ever and an absolute steal.

Early access not a problem? Driftwood ($7), the longboarding game with a starring sloth, just added snowboarding for the festive season, so, what better time to slide in? Then we have Mortal Sin, a brutal but brilliant roguelike that has you descend into unholy dungeons with some thrilling melee combat. (Yes, I’m breaking my own rules since it’s currently on sale for $13. It’s just that good!)

Let’s switch gears to something dramatically more chill: I Commissioned Some Cats ($3.5), which is an adorable hidden object puzzler featuring some stunning art. Another hidden object gem comes from Sizeable ($3), a puzzler that has you shrinking and expanding objects in a diorama. Cloud Gardens ($4.80) is also endlessly relaxing for its gorgeous voxels and post-apocalyptic decorating.

My final recommendation is the time-looping old-school horror Homebody ($9.99), which is somehow brutally scary and insightful about early-adulthood anxieties all at once. Not very festive, but hey, maybe that’s what you’re in the mood for. 

Steam Winter Sale also has discounts on the best Soulslikes.

Insomniac Games has publicly responded to this week’s massive data breach, which saw hacking group Rhysida drop 1.6 terabytes of data onto the internet. The studio has called the hack “extremely distressing,” but reaffirms that Marvel’s Wolverine “continues as planned” despite spoilers circulating the internet. 

“Thank you for the outpouring of compassion and unwavering support,” the studio writes in a social media statement, “We're both saddened and angered about the recent criminal cyberattack on our studio and the emotional toll it's taken on our dev team. We have focused inwardly for the last several days to support each other.”

Insomniac then shares that the studio is “aware that the stolen data includes personal information belonging to our employees, former employees, and independent contractors,” alongside “development details” on its next superhero romp. The company didn’t detail any potential support being offered to affected employees, though it’s still determining “what data was impacted” at the moment.

“This experience has been extremely distressing for us,” the statement continues. “We want everyone to enjoy the games we develop as intended and as our players deserve. However, like Logan… Insomniac is resilient. Marvel’s Wolverine continues as planned, The game is in early production and will no doubt greatly evolve throughout development, as do all our plans.” But we’ll need to wait until “the time is right” to see an official clip from the game. 

Elsewhere, the studio’s community and marketing director James Stevenson reiterated that the information gathering online is “stolen data - not leaked info” and “pirated builds - not leaked demos.” For the uninitiated, the hacking group reportedly demanded $2 million from Sony before releasing the content and claimed that it held back 2% of the information from public view.

Head to our upcoming PS5 games guide to see what else is in the pipeline. 

Last year's GTA 6 leak cost Rockstar $5 million plus "thousands of hours of staff time," the developer told a UK court. 

On December 21, the BBC reported that Arion Kurtaj, a key member of the international hacking group Lapsus$, had been sentenced to indefinite life in a hospital prison due to his alleged involvement in the GTA 6 leak, and "intent to return to cybercrime as soon as possible." 

During the proceedings, Rockstar told the court that the hack had cost the company $5 million to recover, plus "thousands of hours' worth of staff time." The leak, which took place in September 2022, released over 90 screenshots and videos of an early build of GTA 6 - which at this point had barely been announced as in development. 

In July 2023, several months after his initial arrest, Kurtaj was deemed psychiatrically unfit for trial. Then, just a month later, it was discovered that Kurtaj had hacked Rockstar from a hotel room using an Amazon Firestick, TV, and mobile phone - resulting in him being re-arrested.

Although the leak was "extremely" disappointing for Rockstar, it seems the developer more than made it up to fans when it released the official GTA 6 trailer earlier this month. Unfortunately, this wasn't without its issues, as the trailer leaked a day earlier than its official reveal. 

Rockstar isn't the only studio to have recently suffered this kind of cyber attack. Last week, it was reported that Insomniac Games (developer of Marvel's Spider-Man 2) had been hacked by a different group who had obtained information on the studio's upcoming game, Marvel's Wolverine, as well as employee data. Following the attack, there have been plenty of Marvel's Wolverine leaks floating around online.

The GTA 6 trailer confirmed what we already knew: that GTA 6 leak was never anything to worry about, and leaks are very often pointless.

2023 always had scope to be a strange one for Sony. For one, PlayStation entered the year with relatively few first-party exclusives on the books – in comparison to previous years, at least; certainly since the introduction of PS5 in 2020 – with its biggest rival Microsoft gearing up to launch Starfield, easily one of the most-anticipated games of recent times, as an Xbox console exclusive. 

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was the obvious challenger here from a commercial and critical perspective, and while it's difficult to compare the two directly (we'll dig into that further down the page), Insomniac Games' second crack at the red-suited superhero quickly became the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game over a 24-hour period, selling more than 2.5 million copies in a single day. 

Final Fantasy 16 was received well at launch in June, wowing players with its combat, voice acting, and spectacle (I'll leave fans of the series to debate the strength of its story, mind you); while the much-anticipated Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth was pushed back several months into next year. The PS5 had this year's runaway hit Baldur's Gate 3 all to itself in the console space for several weeks; whereas timed-PS5-exclusive Forspoken didn't quite live up to expectations. PSVR 2 excelled, not least by way of Horizon Call of the Mountain; yet the company's marquee PlayStation Showcase and State of Play events too often flattered to deceive. And so went the last 12 months for PlayStation – seemingly matching many of its forward strides with one or two in the opposite direction. 

With the Microsoft-Activision deal bubbling under the surface, a fair amount of Sony's front-facing visibility in 2023 was spent speaking out about why the proposed multi-million dollar acquisition wasn't good for the video games industry as a whole. And while I don't disagree with the sentiment from an anti-monopoly point of view (I will, however, put the glaring inconsistencies in Sony's argument to one side for the sake of debate), I personally felt both sides allowed the tabloid charade of it all to become an increasingly bigger distraction over the course. 

All of which is to say: 2023 always had scope to be a strange one for Sony. And, for me, it totally was.

The state of play

Ahead of May's PlayStation-focused event, I ran a headline that read: Sony simply turning up at the PlayStation Showcase will keep Xbox on the ropes. With the virtue of hindsight, I'll be the first to admit that I missed the mark at top-level – Sony ultimately delivered a lukewarm presentation – but I nevertheless stand by the points made within. Xbox console-exclusive Redfall, aka Microsoft's biggest blunder of the year, was barely behind us when this particular PlayStation Showcase rolled around, and we were less than a month on from a Microsoft earnings report that stated Xbox hardware revenue had plummeted 30% in the previous year. At the same time, Sony had announced that the PS5 was selling faster than PS4 in the US despite years of console shortages, and that the PS5 had passed 500 million home consoles sold as a result. 

Roll all of this into the fact that at the time – way back in the heady days of late May earlier this year – the Microsoft-Activision bid was enjoying one of its signature lulls, whereby any deal whatsoever seemed all but unlikely. Fast forward several months, and not only has the Microsoft-Activision deal gone through, but Microsoft has also enjoyed the successful launch of Xbox-exclusive, Starfield. As mentioned above, making side-by-side comparisons between Bethesda's space-faring RPG and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is impossible, given the fact many Xbox players are playing the former via Game Pass. What we can say about the superhero PS5 exclusive, however, is that it sold more than five million copies in 11 days and was the highest-selling video game of October 2023. That's pretty good going. 

Alongside all of this, the fact that Baldur's Gate 3 launched on PS5 shortly after its arrival on PC made Larian Studios' hit role-player an unlikely boon for Sony – the PS5 becoming the only console alternative for trips to the Sword Coast between September 6 and December 7, when that journey was finally possible on Xbox Series hardware following a handful of delays. I don't think the importance of this inadvertent period of exclusivity can be underestimated, especially given the fact that games of this nature (Larian games in particular) tend to fare better on PC – not to mention the fact BG3 had accrued a solid and pre-existing following via three years in Steam's Early Access initiative. With the promise of Baldur's Gate 3 DLC on the horizon, PlayStation players will inevitably extend their love affair with GamesRadar+'s Game of the Year for 2023 when the time comes.

On the hardware front, the PlayStation Portal landed in November with its 8" display and built-in DualSense controller designed to sort of replicate the PSP and PSVita handhelds of bygone eras. The jury's still out on how well it manages that – but another peripheral that was well-received from Sony's 2023 purview was the PlayStation Access controller. Designed in collaboration with the accessibility community, the Access aims to help players with disabilities play more comfortably, with a broad range of customization options.  

Despite the aforementioned mediocre PlayStation Showcase in May, the Sony State of Play event in September did a far better job of stirring hype for what lies ahead – even if much of that extends into next year. This showing's coup de gras was destined to be a closer look at Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth, part two of the planned trilogy, and it wasted no time in getting going. With flashes of Junon Harbour, the parade on the central thoroughfare of the same seaside town, the cable car ride to the Gold Saucer, Cait Sith, Vincent, Zack, Red 13's hometown of Cosmo Canyon, Bugenhagen, mention of Emerald and Ruby Weapon, and that big bastard swamp serpent that Sephiroth makes light work of – it all looked stunning. Now with its February 29 launch date in sight, 2024 can't come soon enough. 

Elsewhere on PlayStation's coming soon radar sits The Last of Us 2 Remastered (January 19) and Pacific Drive (February 22); with a number of TBC labels hanging over everything from Phantom Blade 0, Sword of the Sea, Hideo Kojima's new project OD, Concord, Marathon, the Silent Hill 2 remake, and Marvel's Wolverine. To the latter end, the catastrophic Insomniac leaks that unfolded this week at the hands of hackers dealt a devastating blow to all of those on the receiving end. 

The depth, scale, and scope of the leaked material that's now in the public domain is unlike anything I've ever seen before in video games, and is certainly a sore one for Insomniac who'd otherwise be riding high into the New Year buoyed by its latest successful release. This is indeed a notable set-back for a first-party PlayStation studio, but if Rockstar Games' recent trajectory in the face of high-profile leaks is anything to go by – from its own in-development content hack last year through to this month's stellar GTA 6 trailer – then I'm confident Insomniac has what it takes to bounce back once it's dusted itself down and is raring to go again. 

And with the sentiment of looking forward in mind, despite a fairly stop-start year from PlayStation against what we're otherwise used to, its next steps into 2024 and beyond will be, as ever, well worth watching. 

Here are the best PS5 games to play right now

Marvel's Wolverine story spoilers look like they're about to get much worse for fans looking forward to Insomniac's game.

Earlier this week, over 1.6 terabytes worth of hacked data from Insomniac Games was released online by a group of hackers. The data included the personal information of studio employees, as well as information about Marvel's Wolverine, and other upcoming Insomniac games that hadn't been announced.

Now, things look like they're about to get much worse for Wolverine fans. A playable build of the game is reportedly circulating online, seemingly allowing players to experience very select vertical slices of the forthcoming game, as well as revealing new story details of Insomniac's new game.

It's worth mentioning the leaked playable build of the game is a PC version of Marvel's Wolverine. However, this isn't indicative of a PC launch for the game - PC builds of a game are very common in the development process, even for a game that isn't being made specifically for a PC launch.

All this is to say that the leaks surrounding the game look set to get worse, especially for those wanting to stay spoiler-free until Marvel's Wolverine actually releases. Be especially vigilant if you're on internet forum websites like ResetEra and Reddit, as well as YouTube.

At the time the hackers first released the information earlier this week, the games industry reacted with general disgust. Developers around the world sent Insomniac Games messages of support, including Alan Wake 2 studio Remedy Games, which called the leaked personal information of developers "truly disgraceful and shameful."

Insomniac hasn't publicly responded to the hacked information at the time of writing. Sony also hasn't responded since the new information was put online but said at the time of the hack earlier this month that it was actively looking into the situation.

You can head over to our upcoming PS5 games guide for a look ahead at all the games aside from Insomniac's slate that are coming to the new-gen console.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 star Yuri Lowenthal, who plays Peter Parker in the acclaimed sequel, has a pitch to bring Across the Spider-Verse antagonist Spot into a hypothetical Spider-Man 3 game.

We had the chance to sit down with Lowenthal recently and we asked him what his first pick for a villain would be if a Marvel's Spider-Man 3 were to happen. Hesitant to provide an answer that might inadvertently come true, he picked Dr. Johnathon Ohnn, AKA Spot, because his powers call to mind the groundbreaking gameplay from Valve's Portal series.

"I've always loved Spot," Lowenthal said. "But I know Spot just got the, uh, spotlight in the most recent movie. But, I mean, wouldn't it be cool? I mean, we've all played Portal and Portal 2. Wouldn't it be cool to have those powers in Spider-Man? To have a fight like that ... it would be so good!"

Lowenthal is absolutely correct that an Insomniac-developed Spider-Man game with Portal powers has the potential to be pretty amazing. Imagine swinging around New York and having to grapple with an enemy that has the ability to form portals to and from different parts of the city, or better yet, having those powers at your own disposal. The possibilities seem endless.

Alas, as Lowenthal notes, the odds of Insomniac going with Spot for its next big villain are pretty low, and that's assuming the studio even has intentions to continue the series with another entry.

For now, here are the best Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Easter eggs and secrets.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has a new update that patches out a bunch of bugs, and unfortunately, you can no longer use an exploit to free-roam New York City as Venom.

*Spoilers ahead for Marvel's Spider-Man 2*

For a couple of weeks now, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 players have been enjoying a fun little bug that let them roam around New York City as the game's main villain, Venom. For context, there's a mission in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 that briefly lets you control the Symbiote, but only from within the very limited confines of the mission area. However, some wily web-slingers figured out that you could use an invisible wall to glitch their way out of the mission zone and explore the map freely as the antagonist. 

Those days appear to be behind us now, as players familiar with the bug are saying they're no longer able to access it. The scuttlebutt is that the bug was causing saves to become corrupted, so it's actually probably for the best that it's been patched out.

INSOMNIAC HAS PATCHED IT😔😔 from r/SpidermanPS4

Did they patch out the Venom free roam glitch? from r/SpidermanPS4

The patch notes for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 version 1.001.005 are available now on Insomniac's website with no mention of a fix for the Venom free-roam bug, but it's not unusual for patch notes to not always be completely exhaustive. I've reached out to Sony for confirmation and I'll update this article if I hear back.

While you probably won't be able to terrify the citizens of New York as Venom at your leisure, you might've noticed the Symbiote can literally play with fire and not get hurt. Game director Bryan Intihar recently explained that that's because having too many Venom weaknesses would be difficult to "communicate" to players.

Free-roam bug or not, GR's Joe Donnelly reckons Marvel's Spider-Man 2's Venom is the best take on the symbiote since his favorite Spidey game from 28 years ago.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 director Bryan Intihar has an answer for why the sequel's take on Venom isn't weak to fire like his comic book counterpart.

*Light spoilers ahead for Marvel's Spider-Man 2*

For reference, in the comics that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is drawn from, Venom has a couple of key weaknesses: high frequency sounds and fire. However, you might've noticed in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, the villain is completely invulnerable to fire. As explained in an IGN interview, this isn't a continuity error, but rather an intentional design choice made in service of intuitive gameplay.

"Fire doesn't hurt the Symbiote and Venom in this game, did you guys notice that?" Marvel's Spider-Man 2 director Bryan Intihar said. "So originally, there was like five different weaknesses of the Symbiote, and we were like, 'Oh my god, how are we going to communicate all these different things?'"

Just in case you're thinking Insomniac Games might've actually just goofed and this is an attempt to justify a mistake, there are both visual and audio cues throughout Marvel's Spider-Man 2 that put that theory to bed.

"We were like, 'you know what, for our universe, we're just going to keep it to high frequency sound," Intihar added. "Someone was like, 'why is Harry not getting hurt by the fire?' and it's like, if you noticed, in the rescue Tombstone mission, Pete purposefully says, 'Is the fire bothering you?' and he goes, 'no, I don't feel anything', just so I can make sure that we cover our bases."

Despite this little discrepancy between the comics and the new game, critics and players are in near uniform agreement that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is an absolute triumph of an open-world superhero game. Insomniac's take on Venom in particular has been praised, with GamesRadar's Joe Donnelly hailing it as the best version of the Symbiote since the 1995 16-bit Spider-Man.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has such a vibrant open-world that Joe wants Insomniac to build a GTA 6-rivaling crime sim.

Developer Insomniac Games has returned a Daredevil reference to Marvel's Spider-Man 2, just days after the director teased speculators about it. 

To catch you up, the first Marvel's Spider-Man game had a plaque outside Nelson and Murdock's legal office - Daredevil's daytime workplace - located in Hell's Kitchen. In the sequel's rendition of New York, that plaque was mysteriously empty and the business' door was plastered with an eviction notice, hinting that the business had moved to a different location or gone under.

When asked about the change, director Bryan Intihar cheekily responded with "stay tuned." That reply obviously stoked even more fan theories around the vigilante lawyer, but in an even more mysterious turn, the plaque has been updated to once again read: "Nelson and Murdock - Attorneys At Law." The eviction notice was also removed thanks to the mostly bug-squashing patch deployed yesterday, November 1. 

The Easter Egg's disappearance and silent return probably means that the whole situation was probably just an asset-related bug that's now been squished. Or was it? Some fans still have hopes about the hero's gaming future, though, especially after discovering an oddly detailed interior that could be related to The Hand - the supervillain organization that debuted in a Daredevil comic.

Insomniac’s joint superhero universe is slowly growing, as the studio recently confirmed that its upcoming Wolverine game shares its universe with Marvel’s Spider-Man. The team has also teased an “epic” threequel and a potential Venom spin-off, so Daredevil could pop up in any one of those projects. As long as they’re set in New York, I guess.

An unreleased Daredevil: Man Without Fear game from 2004 recently resurfaced with new footage. The upcoming Daredevil show wasn’t so lucky, as Marvel cut ties with all writers and directors.

A Marvel's Spider-Man 2 player has found a way to transform Peter and Miles' universe into Spider-Man Noir's, with just a few changes in the settings menu. 

As highlighted by @LachesisHD on Twitter (originally discovered by Reddit user SpaceYetiGamer), there's a way to change the way Marvel's Spider-Man 2 looks, going as far as turning it into Spider-Man Noir's home. 

As you can see from the video below, every inch of New York City can be given a moody makeover - everything from the sky, buildings, and even Peter Parker himself if he's wearing the 'Into the Spider-Verse Noir Suit' - which you can find out how to obtain with our Spider-Man 2 suits guide.

If you wanted to recreate this look yourself, SpaceYetiGamer was kind enough to reveal exactly what settings they applied to make it in the video. First of all, you'll need to head to 'Visual Settings' in the Marvel's Spider-Man 2 settings menu and switch on the 'Film Style Animation' effect. This adds the Into The Spider-Verse animation style to the adventure. After this, in the same menu, find the 'High Contrast Background' option and switch it on. And there you have it, you are now Spider-Man Noir. 

It's been almost three weeks since Insomniac released its Spider-Man sequel, and this isn't the only thing players have discovered in that time. One fan found that Peter Parker holds the Rubik's Cube world record - which is almost as impressive as saving New York City from supervillains every week. Another stumbled across a heartfelt Insomniac developer tribute in the form of a mural in Central Park, while a different player shared a way to take Venom on a tour of New York City.

Take a look at our best Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Easter eggs for even more surprises. 

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 may have introduced a bunch of new characters, but Insomniac says it's "not running out of villains" just yet. 

In an interview with IGN's Beyond! Podcast, the director of Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Bryan Intihar, talked about the sequel's new villains and reassured fans that there are still several others to choose from when it comes to expanding the Insomniac franchise. When asked if he thinks there are many villains left after Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Intihar responded: "We are not running out of villains," before adding: "I never think we're going to run out of villains, ever." 

Spoiler alert: This next part of the story will mention Marvel's Spider-Man 2's villains and Easter eggs so read ahead at your own risk.

If you're still here, I'm going to assume you've already come face-to-face with the likes of Venom, Kraven the Hunter, Sandman, Lizard, and more in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. You may have also encountered some other familiar faces throughout the game, as Intihar revealed on the podcast: "I will tell you two things, Otto [Doc Ock] was always going to be teased at the end of this game, but Cindy Moon [Silk] was never first talked about." Clearly, there are plenty of other characters that Insomniac plans to bring into its Spider-Man universe. 

"If we get fortunate enough to keep working on these things," the developer continues, "this is something we might explore." Elsewhere in the same interview, Intihar addressed one of Marvel's Spider-Man 2's villains in particular. When asked why Sandman technically appears in both games (the first being in the form of a collectible) the director replied: "He's out" - which basically tells you all you need to know about the Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Sandman plothole. 

Although it's not been confirmed just yet, Insomniac's developers have teased an "epic" third game as well as talked about the potential for a Venom spin-off title. We'll have to wait and see to find out which villains are set to appear in either of these potential future titles. 

Take a look at our best Spider-Man villains list to find out who could one day make their way into another Marvel's Spider-Man game. 

At the top of Peter Parker's personal accomplishments I can only imagine are: Saving the world a bunch of times from various supervillains and, in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, solving a Rubik's Cube faster than anyone else.

In case you weren't aware, Peter Parker has a new party trick in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. As demonstrated in this video from Dan Allen Gaming, all you have to do is perform a dive by hitting L3 from a swing or glide and then hold down square and pull down on the left stick. I was able to test this out myself and perform the maneuver from a jump off of the Empire State Building after a few tries, and it is every bit worth the effort.

I can also confirm that Peter Parker is able to piece together the Rubik's Cube in just about three seconds flat, beating the real-life world record currently held by Max Park, who was able to solve the 3x3x3 Rubik's Cube in 3.13 seconds in 2021. In all honesty, I'm not sure my phone's stopwatch is up to Guinness World Records' standards for deciding this sort of thing, nor do I reckon the organization takes feats from video game characters into consideration at all, but I also don't think Max Park solved his Rubik's Cube while diving from one of the tallest buildings in New York. For that reason, I'm happy to give Peter Parker some recognition here.

For more Marvel's Spider-Man 2 tips and tricks, you know where to click.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2's director has addressed the Sandman plothole and there isn't really any reason as to why the villain appeared in both games. 

Speaking on IGN's Beyond! Podcast, Bryan Intihar - the director of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - talks all about the sequel, including that Sandman plothole. If you played the first Marvel's Spider-Man game, you'll probably remember Peter Parker's backpack item collectibles. In one of the backpacks, players will find a vial of sand, which is clearly a reference to the grainy Spider-Man villain, Sandman. As we now know, the villain somehow got out of the vial and became a boss in the sequel. 

When asked on the podcast if there was an explanation behind this, Intihar simply said: "He's out" - proving that there really isn't a reason for Sandman to appear in both games, he just does. "See, this is the stuff that keeps me up at night," Intihar tells IGN, "when you guys talk about that I'm like 'Oh my God, I didn't think about that?! What are we going to do?!'" We should probably forget about the vial of sand for the benefit of Intihar's sleep schedule. 

This isn't the only thing the Spidey sequel's director revealed in the podcast episode. On the topic of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Easter eggs, Intihar addressed the missing Nelson and Murdock sign and told fans to "stay tuned" giving Daredevil fans something to theorize about. It's not exactly clear what this means, but we've got our fingers crossed for some future DLC or maybe even a Marvel's Spider-Man 3. 

In other Marvel news, Insomniac has confirmed that Marvel's Wolverine will take place in the same universe as the Spider-Man games. We're definitely getting ahead of ourselves here, but this could mean that the two superheroes could cross paths one day. With Daredevil's Murdock and Nelson also in the same universe, we wouldn't be surprised if Insomniac is working on its very own Marvel Cinematic Universe. 

Wondering what other superhero games are on the horizon? Take a look at our upcoming Marvel games list. 

The director of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has teased something Daredevil-related by telling fans to "stay tuned" when asked about the missing Nelson and Murdock sign.

Speaking on IGN's Beyond! Podcast, Bryan Intihar - the director of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 - discusses the Spidey sequel, and more specifically, the missing Nelson and Murdock sign players have spotted in the virtual New York City. When asked what happened to the Daredevil characters' law firm, Intihar replied: "That's a good question… stay tuned." Which has given us more questions than answers. 

For new players, in the first Marvel's Spider-Man game players were able to spot Nelson and Murdock's business by its plaque on the front of a building in Hell's Kitchen. In the sequel, the building is still there but the plaque has nothing written on it, hinting that the pair have moved premises. But, if Intihar's comments are anything to go by, there's a chance we could still end up seeing the pair one day.

Although the director didn't specify what this means for Marvel's Spider-Man 2, in a different interview, Intihar did tease an "epic" third game. Not only this, but we now also know that Marvel's Wolverine will take place in the same universe as the Spider-Man games and that a Venom spin-off title could very well be a possibility one day. We really are getting our own Marvel and Insomniac game universe so could end up seeing Daredevil in any one of these games. 

Did you spot the missing Nelson and Murdock sign? Find out what else could be hiding in plain sight with our Marvel's Spider-Man Easter eggs guide.  

It looks like a late developer from Marvel's Spider-Man 2 studio Insomniac has been honoured in the Spidey sequel in the form of a sweet mural in the virtual Central Park. 

As spotted by @TheBatman010 (and not 'The Spider-Man') on Twitter, if you head to Central Park in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, you'll find a mural honoring a mysterious person. There's no label on the piece of art, only small offerings like flowers and a Spider-Man plush, so it's not immediately obvious who this is paying tribute to. 

Thanks to another Twitter user, named @OctoriousYT, it seems this is in fact honoring Craig Goodman, a technical artist at Insomniac who sadly passed away in 2019 after a battle with cancer. 

In a post shared by the studio after Goodman's passing, Insomniac said that the developer "contributed greatly to our company's legacy and vision to have a lasting and positive impact on people's lives." According to the post, Goodman worked at the Sony studio for 15 years and contributed to games such as Ratchet & Clank (the first and its many sequels), Song of the Deep, and the first Marvel's Spider-Man game - so it's very fitting to find the late developer in its sequel a few years later. 

This isn't the first time Insomniac has honored Goodman in one of their games. As the same post reveals, the developer also appeared in the form of the 'Craiggerbears' collectibles - which could be picked up across different planets in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. 

If all bears were collected, players could obtain a trophy for their efforts as well as a new message in the game's menu which read: "Mysterious plush bears that seem to show up on every world. They are said to carry the optimism, kindness, and creativity of a fallen hero missed by his comrades." Which is also an incredibly sweet tribute from the studio.

Find out what else you may have missed with our Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Easter eggs guide. 

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 developer Insomniac has patched out the now fan-favorite glitch that turned Peter Parker and Miles Morales into a little cube.

Shortly after Marvel's Spider-Man 2's release last week, several players reported running into a glitch that swapped out the web heads for a cute little cube - which you can see in action here. Spider-Cube not only appeared in the game's suit menu but, if you selected it, you could actually swing around New York City as the mysterious little entity. 

I'd love to find out the little guy's origin story, was it once a piece of tofu that was also bitten by a radioactive spider? The best part of all of this is that fans got attached to Spider-Cube pretty quickly, resulting in several fan-art interpretations of the glitch - some of which you can see below.

Unfortunately, Spider-Cube was never supposed to exist in this timeline so Insomniac has now removed the glitch in the game's Version 1.001.003 patch. The hero did get a somewhat proper send off though, as the developer's Twitter account did share a couple of emojis including a gravestone and a small white cube. RIP to a real one.

"End of an era," one Twitter user replied to Insomniac's tweet. "MAKE IT A SUIT!," another asked. "The cube will be missed," a different user replied.

Although Spider-Cube is no more, another fun glitch allows Venom to go on a tour of New York City. After making a few strategic jumps, one player discovered that they could take the Symbiote out of the confines of his mission. Be warned, though, there's a possibility it could break the game or corrupt your save file. With great power comes great responsibility after all. 

Speaking of glitching the game, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 player discovers Rhino's sinister fate in an out-of-bounds location.

Tony Todd, the voice actor behind Venom in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, has gotten the Tom Hardy seal of approval.

Tom Hardy - famous for starring roles in Peaky Blinders and Mad Max: Fury Road - adopted the live-action symbiote mantle in 2018's Venom film and 2021's Venom: Let There Be Carnage sequel - both of which were hugely successful at the global box office. Following up the actor's wicked performance is a tall order, but Hardy seems to have been won over by the game's depiction since he captioned a picture of Tony Todd on Instagram with: "Legend."

Tony Todd himself is no stranger to menacing villains, as he was also Candyman in the classic 1992 horror flick, so it's not surprising to see Hardy impressed by the superhero sequel's portrayal. 

Players were also so bowled over by the game's Venom, that they found a glitch that allows the hulking symbiote to free roam around the Big Apple. While Venom is dark and brooding in cutscenes, seeing him ride a bicycle and happily "swim" around the city definitely takes the edge off.

Fans can take comfort in the fact that Venom will (probably) return on both the big screen and in games. A third Venom film starring Tom Hardy is currently scheduled for release on July 12th, 2024. Meanwhile, the game's senior narrative director, Jon Paquette, recently teased that a Venom spin-off could happen if the fans wanted it enough.

Find out where Venom ranks among the rogues gallery in our best Spider-Man villains list.

A Marvel's Spider-Man 2 player has discovered a glitch that lets Venom step out of his dedicated mission and go on a tour of New York City. 

YouTuber Ellemen recently shared a video titled 'How To Free Roam As Venom' that shows players how to perform a glitch that lets the symbiote break free of his mission. In the video, the player in question starts the 'Don't Be Scared' mission, which [spoiler alert] allows Marvel's Spider-Man 2 players to temporarily control Venom as he goes on a rampage through Oscorp Tower. 

Before you follow the tutorial, the video's creator has warned fellow players that the glitch can break your game. Apparently, it will cause enemies to not spawn when you restart the checkpoint, and fellow Spidey villain Kraven the Hunter will also be glitched. It could even break your save file altogether, so it's recommended that you only perform it on a manual save so that you can reload your main save once you're done exploring as Venom. 

As Ellemen explains, you'll need to start the 'Don't Be Scared' mission and progress to the part where Venom is standing in the middle of the city. Once you're free to control him, you need to run up to the building on Venom's left and travel up it by continuously hitting the jump button. 

Once you get to the top of that wall, you need to repeat the same step on the next building to the left. Now you're at the top of this skyscraper, you need to head left and repeatedly jump off the invisible wall to Venom's right - now you're free to pass the other invisible wall on the left and explore the city as you wish.

If this wasn't exciting enough, Ellemen also points out in their video that Venom can swim (if you can even call it that), with "interesting" swimming animations, and even ride a bike - although he's definitely way too big for it. 

Find out where to find the best Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Easter eggs with our guide. 

Rhino appears to have met a grizzly fate based on an out-of-bounds location in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. 

Kraven the Hunter is a huge presence in the superhero sequel, as he rampages through New York City in search of a foe worthy enough for his ‘Great Hunt.’ That hunt puts the character at odds with our own web-headed heroes, but also more than a few supervillains in the game, including Scorpio and Venom. 

But one Sinister Six member that’s mysteriously absent from the game is Rhino, despite his large presence in both 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man and 2020’s Miles Morales. An out-of-bounds glitch has now found Rhino’s whereabouts, and the results aren’t pretty. 

Potential spoilers for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 below.

The YouTube video above sees Peter glitching through the terrain and then swinging underneath the city like something ripped straight out of a twisted alternate Spider-Verse. Peter then discovers an ominous area that contains what seems to be Kraven's throne and a trophy wall with Rhino's disembodied head on display. (Ouch.) The other three heads seemingly belonged to Shocker, Vulture, and Scorpio - those last two are untextured, though. 

Kraven's kill list was surprisingly wide-ranging in the sequel, with some kills grossly depicted on-screen, while others were relegated to off-screen references. Rhino, however, is completely absent from the events. Perhaps Insomniac has plans for the horned villain in the inevitable Spider-Man 3, or maybe the Venom spin-off that's been hinted at. 

Redditor Clkzins explained how they discovered the facility: "I was trying out some glitches that worked on Miles Morales and found out that one of the out-of-bounds bugs still worked, so I started exploring the underground world." Once inside the facility, Clkzins then used the photo mode to bypass an invisible wall and find poor Rhino. Or what's left of him. 

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 sleuths also realized that another major villain was mysteriously absent from the game's events.

Peter Parker is back with the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, but some fans are disappointed that the hero didn’t bring his wardrobe along for the ride. 

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has 68 suits to unlock between both Miles and Peter, not including the alternate suit styles you can equip for each. That’s certainly a respectable number, but the community is still mourning the loss of several costumes that were left behind in previous games.

Over on Twitter, NebsGoodTakes posted a picture showing off the 29 suits that didn’t make the transition from the original 2018 superhero romp. Among them are fan favorites such as the cel-shaded vintage suit, the costume that stripped Spidey down to his underwear, and the Bombastic Bag-Man suit - which was essentially just the Fantastic Four’s outfit with a paper bag for a mask. The bombastic fumble is particularly surprising since the game already contains a couple of references to Marvel’s first family.

One recurring criticism seems to be thrown at the abundance of Tom Holland-era film suits, with several costumes inspired by MCU films, and several more ripped straight from other big-screen Spidey flicks. “They should have just given us the Endgame movie one,” one fan commented. Another said: “I wanted more originals for Pete.” But at least the MCU fits weren’t crowned as the absolute worst.

Developer Insomniac Games added new suits to both 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man and 2020’s Miles Morales in post-launch updates. The studio has already confirmed that new suits are on the way for the web-slinging sequel, but there’s always a possibility that older outfits can hopefully come back, too.

Check out our Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 suits guide to see how to unlock every single outfit.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has one of the best NPC interactions ever, and several devs, actors, and players agree.

As pointed out by Twitter user @TheeDreadGod, there are two NPCs wandering around New York City that players can eavesdrop on. The two characters in question appear to be nannies for different families and happen to start a conversation as Peter or Miles walks past. "I've been nannying on and off with a bunch of different families," one of the NPCs says to the other before revealing that they feel out of their depth with the job.

"I've never even really held a baby before this job," the inexperienced nanny admits, "can you just give me some pointers?" the same character asks - which is when it starts to get a little silly. After suggesting that Nanny 1 uses petroleum jelly when changing diapers, the inexperienced nanny interrupts Nanny 2 and asks: "I'm sorry, we're putting gasoline on these children?" to which Nanny 2 replies: "no, no, no, not gasoline, petroleum jelly." 

This slightly awkward debate continues with Nanny 1 suggesting terrible alternatives to petroleum jelly and Nanny 2 getting more and more exasperated as the conversation goes on - that is until J. Jonah Jameson interrupts the pair. The actor's performance does the scene much more justice than my words, but trust me, it's a hilarious exchange. 

It's not just me who's a fan of this NPC dialogue as the above tweet has got a lot of praise from a lot of different people. Fire Emblem and Genshin Impact actor Joe Zieja quote retweeted the video, adding: "Honestly, sometimes background stuff can be INSANELY fun when they give you this sort of loooong leash to play on. It's rare, but when it happens, man it's a riot." Baldur's Gate 3 actor Dave Jones also shared the clip along with: "Holy hell, this is *astounding*." 

Indie developer Mode7's CEO Paul Kilduff-Taylor also followed suit and said: "There needs to be a specific BAFTA category which encompasses...all of the things that have gone into this...and it needs to be awarded to only this and then immediately retired." Warner Bros. Games writer Mitch Dyer also loved the clip, saying: "Actors unleashed, is there anything better?" 

Finally, Thomas Was Alone and John Wick Hex dev, Mike Bithell, demanded answers, tweeting: "I need someone from the team to DM me if this stuff was all written or if you folks put improv performers in the booth with each other for these moments. Either is impressive. The latter doubly so from a pipeline and approvals perspective." We do already know that Marvel's Spider-Man 2's developer created the sounds of New York City by getting a bunch of people to talk and walk around in circles.

Find out the names and faces behind the performances with our Marvel's Spider-Man 2 voice actors and cast guide. 

There's a short scene early doors in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 where Peter Parker and childhood pal Harry Osborne cycle through the suburban streets of Queens. The pair reminisce on old times, crack immature jokes, and spend what is ultimately a brief but emotional exchange while simply enjoying each other's company. The whole thing is a thoughtful, tone-setting juncture that deliberately jars with the game's narrative-driving, break-neck cinematics – but it also offers a teeny tiny glimpse of something different.

If you've read GamesRadar+'s Marvel's Spider-Man 2 review, you'll already know that I reckon its loudest moments are accentuated by its quietest. It's only after seeing other players working through the above scenario, however, that I'm beginning to fully appreciate the weight of possibility here. Sure, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is at its best as a superhero action-role-player wherein you fill the shoes of a high-flying crime fighter whose feet barely touch the ground. But what if Insomniac was charged with building a crime simulator in the same vein as GTA 5 or GTA Online, or even the little we've seen so far of GTA 6?

Crime in the city

The above scene couldn't be further from the hedonistic trappings of the Grand Theft Auto universe, but the thought of Insomniac taking its world-building prowess into a different genre was driven home for me via this clip shared on Twitter. Away from Peter and Harry's heartfelt set-piece, the player there is seen grabbing an idle bicycle in the heart of Astoria, before riding down the street until the bike vanishes. The world reacts to Spidey's wayward cycling, jumping out of his path, and throwing their arms above their heads in panic. The player identifies the exact location of the bike in-game in the above tweet's replies, and confirms that despite the vehicle's disappearance, the bike respawns in the same place thereafter. It's innocuous, inadvertent, and appears to be either a bug or at the very least an oversight dev-side, but it's cool nevertheless.  

Of course, the GTA fanatic in me means I'm now imagining Spidey hotwiring cars, tearing down Fifth Avenue and emptying the clip of a Micro SMG into an unsuspecting gang of Kraven's hunters out the window. I'm picturing him hijacking supervillain drug runs, and setting up his own meth lab-operating motorcycle gang. I suddenly see our not-so-friendly neighborhood negotiator robbing banks while staring down the sights of an Assault Shotgun, owning dodgy nightclubs, and stealing vintage vehicles from Eastern European mobsters. 

I'm not sure any of this would fly with Marvel given Spidey's squeaky clean persona, granted, but I suppose the point I'm making here is: Insomniac is at the peak of its powers when it comes to building credible, living, breathing open-worlds; and the studio is even more expert today in filling those confines with blockbuster action. Another studio rising to challenge Rockstar in this space would be great for fans of the genre – especially given the sad fact Saints Row developer Volition was shuttered earlier this year after 30 years in operation. 

The closest I think we've seen to a GTA challenger of sorts recently, Just Cause aside, is Build A Rocket Boy's Mindseye – the game said to exist within the dev's upcoming Everywhere – but it's far too early to pass judgment on that one at this stage. Without spoiling anything related to Marvel's Spider-Man 2 story, there is probably a third game in the works already too, which will inevitably be the studio's priority whenever its developers get back from some well-earned post-shipping respite. Still, I don't think there are many, if any, other devs so capable in this space of bringing a city to life to this degree, and I'd love to see it spread its tendrils whenever it finally says goodbye to Peter and Miles.

Unfriendly fire 

Who knows what lies ahead, but Naughty Dog's success across the Uncharted series and The Last of Us is a nice comparison regarding first-party PlayStation studios spreading their skills across genres. The praise the Uncharted games courted at the time (especially 2 and 3) pretty much turned Naughty Dog into a household name, but while it eventually spawned a Hollywood adaptation, I don't think it's unreasonable to say The Last of Us is the more popular series of the two – with all its remakes, remasters and its acclaimed HBO TV series.  

With such a vibrant, buzzing and accomplished take on a scaled-down New York City – Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn, Coney Island, Harlem, and all – Insomniac has the perfect template to build from; to bend and break its familiar formula and the real-world-mirroring laws Spider-Man so closely follows. With GTA 6 surely not too far away, with all things quiet on the Just Cause front, and with Saints Row having retired from the race entirely, is it wishful thinking to pine for an Insomniac Games slant on the open-world crime sim genre? Almost definitely. Does it make sense for the studio to do so? In time, I think absolutely. Could it deliver? Well, as a wise character once said: With great power comes great responsibility. 

Here are the best action games bringing the noise right now

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has spread its web-wings and is out right now, which obviously means the wait for an inevitable threequel has begun. The game’s director has thankfully dished out some tidbits about the future, pointing to the MCU’s trajectory as a clue. 

This article contains spoilers for Marvel's Spider-Man 2.

When asked about potential plans for Marvel’s Spider-Man 3, in an interview with YouTube channel SkillUp, director Bryan Intihar made comparisons to certain MCU films. “If Spider-Man 1 [was] like our Iron Man, and Spider-Man 2 was like our [Captain America] Civil War… Where logically do we go from there?” Intihar continued to tease that “it could be pretty epic.”

The metaphor is intentionally vague, but it essentially means that the first superhero romp was an introductory story and the second game was a bigger crossover between heroes (Miles and Peter.) But what would be the MCU counterpart for a Spidey threequel? The best guess is probably Infinity War, based on the “epic” tease.

That could potentially mean that Peter and Miles will be swinging up toward the cosmic voids, into the spider-verse, or just to more “epic” territory, whatever that might be. Thanos, however, is presumably off the table since he’s not traditionally a Spidey-centric villain, especially without the Avengers running about.  

As we explained in our guide to Spider-Man 2’s ending, a post-credits scene introduces us to a fellow (maybe-soon-to-be) web-slinger called Cindy Moon, otherwise known as Silk. She normally has connections to the multiverse in the comics, so Insomniac might follow the uber-successful animated films and sling across the spider-verse. That Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart tech is sitting right there, I guess.

Check out what Silk’s introduction could mean for Spider-Man 3.

Despite being released just three days ago, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has already managed to become the fourth-highest physical release in the UK.

As reported by GamesIndustry.biz's Christopher Dring on Twitter, Insomniac's Spider-Man sequel has already performed very well. Digital data is still yet to be revealed but, at the time of writing, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is the fourth biggest physical release of 2023 in the UK, behind The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, EA Sports FC, and Hogwarts Legacy. Dring also reveals that the PS5 exclusive beat Super Mario Bros. Wonder to the top spot to become the UK's best-selling game of the week. 

Interestingly, Dring's tweet also says that Marvel's Spider-Man 2's physical launch sales are 20% lower than what God of War: Ragnarok managed to get around the same time last year. The sales figures also show that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is "significantly down" compared to the first Insomanic Spider-Man game, but this is likely due to an increase in digital game sales compared to back in 2018. As Dring has said: "It isn’t possible to draw any conclusions until the download data is in."

In our Marvel's Spider-Man 2 review, we called the Spidey sequel "quite simply the best superhero game yet" and gave it a glowing five out of five stars - praising its gorgeous visuals, vibrant New York City setting, and fun combat and traversal. So it's no surprise that it's only taken three days for the game to get close to catching up to the likes of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and Hogwarts Legacy. We'll have to wait and see exactly how well it's sold in the UK once the digital data has been released. 

Ready to take on great power and great responsibility? Take a look at our best Spider-Man 2 skills, gadgets, abilities, and suit tech guide before you get started.

Bryan Intihar, creative director of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 took to X just the other day to sing the praises of game videographer Much118, whose recent video managed to mimic the Into the Spiderverse movie's Leap Of Faith scene almost perfectly.

Captured entirely within Marvel's Spider Man 2 game, the camera angles and flips line up so well with the original movie's iconic scene, that Intihar seems lost for words in his quote X post.

"I mean…how is this…just wow…" he says.

Granted, the video's designer does this kind of thing in a professional capacity, with their bio listing clients such as Sony Santa Monica, CD Projekt Red, Ubisoft, and PlayStation Access. But as the comments section points out, this is one of their most impressive feats yet. And to have caught the attention of the game's creative director, whose work on making Miles and Peter so darn relatable is garnering a lot of positive attention at the moment, is something to be immensely proud of.

Over on Much118s YouTube channel, their about page says "I play, capture and edit short movies and trailers showcasing and highlighting the beautiful, unique and fun gameplay of some of the best games in the medium."

That includes everything from "Precise parries, slick combos and brutal takedowns, always looking for the best angle, the right light and breath-taking vistas."

This one certainly captures a lot of breathtaking vistas - jumping headfirst into traffic from a skyscraper certainly counts as breathtaking in my book - but it also showcases Much's aptitude for working to a tight and specific brief. 

That's a skill that any videographer should strive toward achieving, especially if they're looking to get gigs from the industry's big-name-developers.

In response to Intihar's flattery, Much's comments reflect a supremely positive opinion on Marvel's Spider Man 2 as a whole. "Thanks for making a masterpiece of a game!"

Speaking to the BBC recently, creative director of Marvel's Spider-Man 2, Bryan Intihar, details some of the character choices made within the Insomniac Games studio around the game's main characters, Peter Parker and Miles Morales.

In our Marvel's Spider-Man 2 review our Joe Donnely raved about the game's story, as did many of the game's reviewers. In particular people have been heavily invested in the portrayal of the protagonists' backstories, and how the studio chose to represent their innermost feelings throughout the narrative.

Aside from Intihar's comments around the fact that longer isn't always better for games, he says that in order to help players connect with Peter and Miles on a more intimate level - as you should with any character you embody in a game - it was important for them to demonstrate their battles with grief, the difficulties of growing up, and how they deal with forming (and breaking) relationships.

His conclusion is that the level of connection players feel with Peter and Miles is down to their being just normal men.

They're relatable on a level few other Marvel characters are, because they're just dudes doing normal dude stuff, only with a few inhuman abilities thrown in to make things a little more exciting. 

It's not the spidey-moves that make a compelling character, it's the human angle.

Intihar compares Peter and Miles to some of the franchise's less relatable characters, saying "I love Tony Stark, but it's hard to identify with a billionaire, right?" 

It's true, the majority of the population probably do have trouble stepping into the bespoke and exorbitantly expensive shoes of the one percent. I know I do.

"And look at Thor. Great hero, but it's hard to identify with a god." I'm not sure about you, Intihar… 

These are fascinating insights into the mind of Insomniac Games' creative director, in any case, and it's great that he was able to shed some light on what he feels is most important to players when it comes to game characters.

Here's hoping more game studios take note, and inject their storylines with more relatable happenings in characters' lives.

I love Insomniac Games. I think we all do lately, with what they've done for the Spider-Man franchise, the storytelling, the fun of swinging around New York, and even how much the accessibility has improved in five years going back to the original release of Marvel's Spider-Man in 2018. So, my anticipation for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was high. What would Insomniac do to improve accessibility again? Well, I think I should've waited until December to play. Let's talk about why.

The reason I wish I had held off for a few more months is that Insomniac recently took to the PlayStation Blog to list the accessibility support that will be in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 at launch and what options will arrive in December 2023. While it isn't uncommon for a developer to release a post-launch accessibility update, what is uncommon is how transparent Sony Interactive Entertainment has been about all this ahead of release. I applaud and appreciate PlayStation for taking this step as it's something I've been wanting to see from publishers for a while now. 

So, what accessibility support is coming to Marvel's Spider-Man 2 in December? There will be a screen reader, which will include an option to set a repeat timer so if you miss a line of text, you can set how long of a delay before it will repeat that line. Audio Descriptions for in-game cinematics, Full captions for sound effects and combat music, controller remapping, and more. That is a lot of accessibility to sadly not have at launch. So if any of those features are options you need, you can either buy the game now and wait for the free update to release or just hold off and wait to buy in December.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 accessibility at launch

With that being said, I do want to talk about what accessibility is in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 today, knowing that there's still more to come. Most of the accessibility in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is primarily a culmination of all the accessibility Insomniac has done in its previous Spider-Man games and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. So if you are familiar with those games and their accessibility options, you will be comfortable with what's here.

There are accessibility presets for Vision, Motor, Hearing, and Motion sensitivity that will enable multiple options labeled for those specific disabilities without having to go into the main menus and manually enable them yourself. Even though Audio Descriptions and the screen reader for blind players aren't present at launch, there are several options for some of the blindness spectrum, like High Contrast Modes and larger waypoint icons. High Contrast Mode will allow you to add shaders to all the characters, and you can manually set the colors you want to identify the character you're playing, your allies, as well as all the enemy types – whether unarmed, armed, or brute characters or bosses. It can also identify objects or areas you can interact with in your environment if you need to find the next part of your mission.

For deaf/hard of hearing players, sadly again will have to wait to get full captions which will provide captions for non-speaking dialogue as well as sound effects and music cues. But at launch, there are customizable subtitles to adjust text size, speaker tag, background, background opacity, and text color. They even have a cute little Spider-Man head icon to tell you whether it's Peter or Miles talking while they are in their spidey suits. 

It's also worth flagging that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is great for Deaf representation. Insomniac introduced a deaf character named Hailey in Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, an artist and friend who speaks with Miles through ASL. The 2020 release featured Narrated ASL support where, whenever Hailey speaks, her lines are not only subtitled but narrated by Deaf actor Natasha Ofili and it's great to see that return for Spider-Man 2. Additionally, for deaf/hard of hearing players, there is the ability to turn off or adjust the audio frequencies. So for instance if you find that the high pitch of an explosion to be painful, you can turn the high frequencies off. Or in the same explosion, if the low rumble of that explosion is not comfortable, you can turn off that frequency as well.

For Motor disabled players, Insomniac has introduced two new features that I think benefit everyone and that's in regards to combat. The previous Spider-Man games have been called very button-bashy, in terms of how much you are constantly hitting buttons when attacking or dodging enemies. To address that, Insomniac has added an option called Melee Mode that when enabled you can hold down on Square to do a single attack, a four combo move, or to continuously attack. That way you aren't having to mash that button every time you want to hit someone. This allows you to focus on dodging enemies without interrupting your attacks. 

Speaking of dodging you can also enable a similar option called Continuous Dodge when you hold down on Circle, you will constantly be dodging until you push another button to interrupt that dodge. To go even further, the studio borrowed an option from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart that allows you to adjust the game's speed so you can slow down combat to make the combat less frantic and give you more time to strategize your attack better. Believe me, those options came in handy for me in my playthrough, particularly towards the end of the game when enemies were coming at me so quickly that it was hard to keep up. 

Verdict

There is one major blocker that I do have to mention, and that's in regards to a mini-game involving the trigger buttons on the PS5 DualSense controller. The Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Prowler Stash side quest involves finding hidden tech throughout New York City; when trying to scan the relevant areas, two vertical bars pop up on the screen with a horizontal gray bar in each and a yellow target. You have to subtly push down on both trigger buttons to try to line that yellow target to the horizontal gray bar and then hold it there for a few seconds to complete the mini-game. There is no way to skip them, simplify them, or an option in the settings to help with them. So if you have trouble with fine motor control or pushing down on the triggers is uncomfortable or painful, doing this task will be very difficult. This quest is skippable as its main purpose is to unlock Tech Gear points to level up and to try to 100% complete Spider-Man 2. However, this mini-game pops up twice near the end of the game and you can't move forward in the story until you complete it.

Overall, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is good. It is one of the best superhero games I've played. The story is compelling, has great emotional and fantastical moments. The characters are really great and stand out. It definitely lives up to Marvel's Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales in so many ways. It's also one of the rare games I personally was able to roll credits on. However, until that update in December, I don't feel comfortable giving the game a recommendation until we see full accessibility support introduced. If any of what I mentioned doesn't affect your disability then I would recommend the game now, otherwise, wait until December.

Yuri Lowenthal, the actor behind Peter Parker in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, had an unexpected pick for his favorite spidey-centric villain. 

“Man, that’s a hard one,” Lowenthal said in an interview with Gamesradar. “It’s hard with all the things that we’ve built to not love the relationship Spider-Man, Peter Parker, has with Otto Octavius, Doctor Octopus.” He’s of course referring to the mentor-mentee relationship that was central to Insomniac’s first superhero outing, but the actor had another surprising baddie in mind.

“One of the villains I’ve always loved, and that I pushed for in the games early on, is Spot,” he continued. “I was like, ‘Can we get Spot in this game [the sequel]?’ And then of course, he ends up showing up in the movie [Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse], so I kind of get the best of both worlds.”

Lowenthal previously mused that Spider-Man’s rogues gallery was second only to Batman’s, and he continued to assert that “they’re some of the most memorable bad people out there.” But upon reflection, Lowenthal had a second, even more unexpected, pick. “I say it now as tongue-in-cheek because I feel kind of like an asshole even saying this, but Peter's greatest villain is… himself,” the actor said. “It's that guilt, his lack of confidence, and he beats himself up much more than any villain would ever do."

When it comes to his own sequel’s big bad and arguably Spidey’s most recognizable villain ever, Lowenthal admitted he didn’t have much history with Venom: “I mean, everybody, everybody, loves Venom. It’s funny because I didn’t grow up reading Spider-Man comics at the time when Venom was big. So I know Venom is huge for a lot of people, but maybe less so for me because I imprinted on Spider-Man way before Venom was around.”

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is out worldwide today - an event that forced fans to go into lockdown to avoid spoilers.

Be sure to check out the 8 tips we wish we knew before starting.

Everyone remembers that scene in 2007's Spider-Man 3, when the hero, played by Tobey Maguire, reaches peak asshole status under the spell of the symbiote suit. At the time, the sidewalk-strolling set-piece – where Peter Parker gains an attitude, an inflated ego and a fringe – was deliberately tongue-in-cheek, cringeworthy and hilarious all at once, and is still the subject of viral memes to this day. In-keeping with the playfulness of Sam Raimi's Spidey trilogy, though, the scene fits its framing, both tonally and thematically. 

In Marvel's Spider-Man 2, however, Peter's submission to the black suit is more complicated. The same behavior changes consume the star of the show, but all told this slant on the symbiote, Spider-Man, and, ultimately, Venom is far darker; more closely aping its The Amazing Spider-Man comic run, as opposed to the suit's myriad appearances in other media since. 

I won't spoil anything here, but suffice to say this process in Insomniac Games' much-anticipated follow-up uncovers a moodier, more twisted and volatile side to Peter Parker's Spider-Man. And for Yuri Lowenthal, the actor and voice actor who helped bring the character to life, that was exactly what hooked him from the outset.

"Even from the outline of the story, I got so excited," Lowenthal explains. "Not just because we were getting to tell a Venom story, and getting to tell a symbiote story, but also because we were getting to tell a story with a fundamentally different Peter Parker. And any actor will tell you that they'll play a villain in a heartbeat. You know, we prefer playing villains to heroes because it gives us license to behave badly, with no social repercussions." 

"That said, I was unaware how difficult that would be for me. Peter is so, well, Peter, he's our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and so making him antithetical to all of those things was challenging to the point where it left me exhausted at the end of every working day."

Back to black 

Albeit gradual, the pivot in Peter Parker's persona in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is a distinguished one, which sees the OG Spider-Man steadily losing sight of what's important to him. Supporting characters like Miles Morales, aka the game's other playable Spider-Man, and Mary Jane Watson do what they can to steer Peter from temptation, but the inherent strength of the symbiote suit proves a difficult obstacle to shift.  

A moodier protagonist, of course, calls for a moodier performance. I ask Lowenthal if this impacted his approach to his acting methods, his preparation or his down time. "I didn't bring my work home as such," he says, laughing. "But, again, I was going home exhausted at night unlike before and I wasn't used to that. I'd gotten into a very easy place with Peter, and suddenly I was required to shove him into a different box, and that was always weird, and physically and mentally exhausting. So I brought that side of it home."

"But my wife, who played Yuri [Watanabe] in the first game, she, just like that character, will not take any of my shit. Then there's my son who's seven, he's jumping around like a superhero most of the time anyway, so I feel like I still get to live that life when I get home. It's funny, because my son was like two or three when we made the first game. When I was leaving for work every morning, telling him I was going away for the day to be Spider-Man – it occurred to me later on that he might have thought I was going out to be actual Spider-Man!"

Despite taking nothing for granted while playing such an important role in such a blockbuster video game series – a gratitude Lowenthal extends to his work across the likes of Mortal Kombat 1, Diablo 4, Redfall and a host of other games – the working life of a superhero video game actor has the same peaks and troughs as any other vocation behind the scenes. Which is to say: Marvel's Spider-Man 2 in its finished, super-polished, five-star state after several years of development, crafted by thousands of hugely talented individuals is great; but it's always worth remembering just how much goes into bringing such an ambitious undertaking to life. 

By Lowenthal's own admission, his part in this is to bring a performance that's as full and as natural as the virtual world the developers around him have created. When filming and motion-capturing the game's breakneck, larger-than-life cutscenes, this might see the cast in its entirety gather in the studio, pouring their collective blood, sweat and tears into the headline-stealing set-pieces that feature in the final product. Other times, it might require Lowenthal to spend consecutive days in an isolated booth, recording and re-recording seemingly trivial (but no less important) lines for open-world segments opposite performance director Kris Zimmerman.  

"I'll tell you something, and I don't think I'm speaking out of school when I say this," says Lowenthal. "When Insomniac casts people, they cast them for the role, for the story, and to be part of a family. And that last one is equally important, maybe even more important than the other two, to be honest, but they definitely pay attention to all three elements. They need to know that each actor is a person who's willing to come and play and be creative and work with other people and not fill the room with an ego, or to cause problems because, you know, this takes a lot of work, and they don't have a lot of time to do it. And everyone I've worked with on these games has been amazing [with this in mind]"

"As a personal thing, though, if I know their career, I can't deny that's exciting. Like when Mark Ralston first came in, you know, to play Norman Osborn. I waited a couple of days of working with him before I said, 'Hey, Mark, what's, what's the statute of limitations on asking you to tell stories about working on Aliens? Are you cool about it?'" And the same goes for Tony Todd – he's the Candyman, you know? Tony and I worked on something recently so we have a pre-existing relationship, but even still, when he walks into a room it definitely takes a second to get past his career and all the characters he's played. Luckily, Tony is a very loving, giving, collaborative actor, and he's just so cool."

 With great power 

Believe it or not, everything up to this point is the easy part for your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. The acting, the voice over work, the mo-cap performances, the years and years of hard graft, of injecting love and personality into every recording, and then going home exhausted in the real-world, having saved virtual NYC across Manhattan, Harlem, Queens, Brooklyn and Coney Island from some of the toughest supervillains the city has ever seen in-game. 

That is a walk in Central Park. The hard part, for Lowenthal at least, is this part – where Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has only just made its way into the hands of players, and when those same people are still forming their opinions of both Spider-Man's latest video game outing under the care of Insomniac Games, and a performance powered by Lowenthal himself.  

"This part is maddening," he says. "Right up to this point, you just want people to play it already. I think everybody on the team is the same. Once they were able to let go of it, they worked on it right up until the very last second, refining and refining everything, but I think all of us just want people to play it, to really get into it, and to, hopefully, enjoy it."

"This part is a different kind of nerves because there's nothing anyone on this side can do now. You can never please everyone, but hopefully we'll be able to excite Spider-Man fans and video game fans in the same way we did last time."

This feature forms part of our special On the Radar series celebrating the launch of Marvel's Spider-Man 2. You can follow all our week-long coverage in our On The Radar - Marvel's Spider-Man 2 hub.