3 ways Marvel’s Spider-Man sequel can improve upon the original game
Multiple playable characters
It’s true that there were multiple playable characters in Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4. However, while you could play as Spider-Man, Mary Jane, and Miles Morales, there’s an argument to be had that only the wall-crawler got to have all the fun. Miles and Mary Jane’s missions were stealth-based, and enclosed in relatively small spaces. You never got to fight enemies or travel through the world map while controlling either of them. Because of that, it was hard to get excited whenever you stopped playing as the superhero and had to play as a normal citizen. But that could all change for the new entry in the saga.
Now that Miles Morales has developed superpowers as well, it is all but confirmed you’ll get to play as two different Spider-Men for the sequel. But why stop there? Back in 2005, an action-adventure video game called Ultimate Spider-Man was released. In it, Peter Parker had to face its greatest foe yet: a dangerous symbiote attached to a revenge-seeking student named Eddie Brock.
The game not only allowed you to be a gracious hero by saving the lives of New Yorkers when playing as Spider-Man, but it also allowed you to inflict chaos and mayhem as Venom. The human-eating symbiote had its own set of gameplay mechanics that were completely different than those of the wall-crawler. For example: while you had to use high-reaching jumps as Venom in order to travel through the city, Spidey could web-sling across it.
Because the supervillain is confirmed to be a part of Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS5, it could be the perfect opportunity for Insomniac to let us wreak havoc as the iconic Lethal Protector. That would allow for 3 different playable characters, with 3 different move sets and combat styles. At the very least, we should get that gameplay variety in the form of Spidey using the symbiote (just like Spider-Man: Web of Shadows did back in 2008).
A bigger, and richer open world
New York is a big focus in Marvel’s Spider-Man saga. Many believe Insomniac delivered one of the best representations of the city that never sleeps in any videogame at all. In Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4, the map even changed depending on how much you progressed through the story. You could see the city go from being a beautiful and relatively peaceful place, to an all-out warzone with escaped inmates taking over every building they could. Not only that but there were also many different activities scattered throughout the world in order to keep players entertained.
However, just using the same map and side quests from the previous games is not going to be enough for the sequel to become a success. The world needs to be bigger this time around, and a way this could be achieved is by allowing players to explore Queens. In Marvel’s Spider-Man for PS4, Peter was evicted from his apartment and was forced to find a new place to live at the end of the game. While it’s not clear where the web-slinger moved to, it could very well be to his childhood home back in Queens. That would give us a narrative reason to explore a new area of New York in the upcoming game. But why stop there? Brooklyn could be explorable as well, allowing the new open world to be even twice as big as the original.
New activities should be added too in order to keep things interesting. This is where things get a little bit tricky since Insomniac has already given us many different side-quests in the previous two games. These ranged from racing through the city, taking pictures of important locations, and even scouting the map looking for unique sounds in order to compose songs. However, fast-paced persecutions with supervillains could always be added, along with quests where you need to catch citizens falling mid-air.