Marvel's Spider-Man 2 (2022 PlayStation 5 Video Game)

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is an action-adventure game developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Based on the Marvel Comics superhero Spider-Man. After the success of the first game this game was widely anticipated amongst fans and critics alike. The game received universal acclaim from critics for its elaborate set pieces, character design, music, graphics, characterization, web-swinging traversal mechanics, and combat. Development on the second game started soon after the release of Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales.

Synopsis
Three years after the events of the first game, Peter Parker balances his new job as an ESU Professor while old friends and foes alike return to threaten the city he protects as Spider-Man. Peter Parker and Miles Morales must navigate these waters together, and stop these threats from destroying New York.

Main Characters

 * Peter Parker/Spider-Man
 * Miles Morales/Spider-Man
 * Mary-Jane Watson
 * Harry Osborn
 * Norman Osborn/Green Goblin
 * Eddie Brock/Venom
 * Yuri Watanabe/Wraith

Secondary Characters

 * Flash Thompson
 * Curt Conners/The Lizard
 * Silver Sable
 * Felicia Hardy/Black Cat
 * Jessica Drew
 * Ganke Lee
 * Rio Morales
 * Danika Hart
 * Otto Octavious/Dr. Octopus
 * Lana Baumgartner/Bombshell
 * Fabio Medina/Goldballs

Main Villains

 * Green Goblin
 * Venom
 * Wilson Fisk/Kingpin
 * Mysterio/Quentin Beck

Secondary Antagonists

 * Fisk Goons
 * The Goblins
 * Roxxon Energy
 * Kraven the Hunter
 * Taskmaster
 * Screwball

Gameplay

 * The game gives you a choice of three players to use throughout the game, Peter Parker, Miles Morales, and Yuri Watanabe as Wraith (an intentionally lethal character).
 * Gameplay is unique and specific to each character, with dodging/movement easier to accomplish with the Spider-Men, as Wraith is more of a gunplay/brawler type of character
 * Suits now have a perk for each character (Ex: Peter has Suit Powers, Miles has Lens Mods, Wraith has Weapon Mods, with all three still having Suit Mods.
 * Mods are now acquired by completing certain missions (Ex: Stealthier Suit Mods are acquired by completing a certain number of stealth missions).
 * Suits are now *slightly* customizable (jackets/normal clothes/backpacks for the Spider-Men, and different color customization for Wraith), and take damage through the game
 * Wraith must wait for laser pistols to cool down before further use, has swords/knives/hands during the meantime
 * Skill trees play to the strengths of each character, Wraith unlocks new weapons, Miles unlocks new power specifications, Peter unlocks new gadget opportunities, traversal/combat skills from the first game/Miles Morales stay.
 * Three DLC missions specific to each character, highlighting different skills
 * No more MJ stealth missions nobody likes those

Act I
During the Fall of 2021, Peter Parker begins his new job as a Physics Professor at his alma mater, ESU. Life is good for Peter, he's engaged to Mary-Jane, shares his schedule as Spider-Man with Miles, and had recently reconnected with his best friend Harry Osborn (who now runs both Oscorp and Roxxon Energy, following the very public disgrace of Norman Osborn and Simon Krieger.) However, Wilson Fisk is due for a parole hearing in court, and it's in the public opinion Fisk will walk a free man. Meanwhile, Miles Morales had just graduated from High School, taking a gap year to focus on his adventures as Spider-Man. The game begins with him escorting Wilson Fisk to his parole hearing, surveying for criminal activity. As he swings along, Miles hears an explosion in the distance, and swings towards it. Miles immediately sees a giant hole in the middle of the bank, and the first mission stars: Miles takes out bank robbers. Finally, Miles beats the bank robbers and notices two women leaving the bank with cash in a trunk. Miles is about to thwip to the truck when he sees a giant gold ball tear a hole through the back of the truck. Miles turns around to find mutant and X-Man Fabio Medina, otherwise known as Goldballs. Miles gets over to the truck, and notices the assailants are gone, but left the cash. After asking who he is, Miles berates Goldballs for his reckless behavior, which is when he hears the loud crash of a car. Miles immediately knows what's going on, but by the time he gets there all he sees are Fisk goons fighting the police. Once Miles is finished with the goons, Wilson Fisk had been long gone. Miles tells Ganke what had happened, on his way to his recently freed Uncle's apartment for some advice.

We return to Peter's perspective. Peter is finished for the day, having not taken too many classes in order to balance his other job. Grading papers, Peter gets a call from Harry to have lunch and catch up on what they've missed. They get pizza together, and catch up on what they've been doing from when Harry "left to Europe" to when he "returned" about a couple months ago. Harry tells Peter about his acquisition of both OsCorp and Roxxon, turning them into far better and eco friendly organizations, as his mom would've wanted. Still, Harry seems far more egotistical and brash, while at the same time delivering an anti Spider-Man rhetoric throughout the conversation. Harry expresses his grievances for Aunt May's death, asks how MJ is doing, and drives off with Oscorp Security (old Sable soldiers who had quit, + other private militia). Concerned for both Harry's disease and new personality, Peter suits up as Spider-Man and follows Harry's security detail from a distance. Harry arrives at a Roxxon base instead of his home, and when Peter tries to get a closer look he is attacked by Taskmaster. Taskmaster tells Peter not to take it personal, and begins his attack. This triggers the game's first boss battle, and when Peter finally defeats Taskmaster, Peter asks why he attacked him. Taskmaster responds with he's been hired to carry out a job, with this, a woman in armour similar to Taskmaster's (without the cape and a mask that only cover the bottom of her face) comes out of nowhere and slashes Peter's arm. Acrobatically, she moves to Taskmaster's side, and the two disappear behind a smoke screen. Confused but still focused on the mission, Spider-Man enters the Roxxon base, calling MJ and informing her of what happened, while he engages in a stealth mission. Peter takes down the Roxxon soldiers, (stealthily so Harry doesn't hear about it) and travels through a vent to find Harry in a venom/bacta tank, with Norman and Curt Conners supervising. Understanding this is a delicate process (and not technically illegal), Spider-Man sneaks off with a sample of the venom they're injecting Harry with, and swings off.

We switch back to Miles, currently at his Uncle's apartment. Rio is aware of Miles talking to his uncle, and allows it even though she isn't the biggest fan of it. Uncle Aaron has been out of prison for about a month, getting out earlier than the original 2 years for good behavior. Miles usually stops by the apartment to make music and blow off steam with his uncle, also using the opportunity to rant. He tells his uncle about how Fisk escaped, the bank heist, and the new Goldballs mutant he ran into. Aaron gives Miles the usual advice of taking things one step at a time, seeing as Miles had been distracted by having to lecture Goldballs. Later on in the conversation, Aaron reminds Miles to be better than he was, asking Miles if he ever found the "Purple Reign" suit from the Miles Morales videogame. Miles says he has it, kept in a closet as a keepsake. Aaron tells Miles he's proud of what Miles has become, to which Miles takes positively, and swings off to patrol the city. Miles heads to FEAST to help out and volunteer, when he sees an out of control truck on the road. Miles beats the goons in the truck, (from the Underground), and interrogates one of the members on where he was headed. Miles figures out they were trying to hit an OsCorp research lab, and swings over there. In the lab, Miles finds Underground enemies with OsCorp gear, including gliders, guns, and bombs that explode a gas (gradually takes health away). Miles defeats the new Underground, who now refer to themselves as the "Goblins". However, a lot of the tech has already gone missing, Sensing this is a problem for 2 Spider-Men (also considering Peter's ties to the Osborn family), Miles calls Peter to launch a dual investigation.

Peter gets the call from Miles and agrees to help search later that night. Currently, he's worried about what the venom sample even is. Collected in a test tube, Peter uses the ESU laboratory to try and analyze what the Venom even is. After an analysis mini game, Peter still can't figure out what it is. Pete gets a call from MJ, asking him for some help with dinner, they're inviting old friend Eddie Brock over to catch up. Peter leaves the lab, but some of the venom slipped into his jacket from a crack in the bottom of the vial. Eddie and Peter were bitter rivals at the Bugle, but friends outside of it. Eddie is more close to MJ, something like a brother to her after his help with navigating the Bugle job. They're all talking and having a good time, Peter is messing up dinner, all is going well. Eddie gives his usual rant on Spider-Man (think J Jonah Jameson but a photographer instead, he tries as much as possible to paint Spidey in a bad light.) and complaining about how there's two now. Pete and MJ brush this off to avoid suspicion, but continue talking. Eddie then shows Pete and MJ a picture of Spider-Man leaving a Roxxon buillding with a black vial in his hand, this would be bad press for Spider-Man seeing as Roxxon is a government building, and he's leaving with a vial of stuff that could be potentially pinned against him. Eddie refuses to go to the Bugle with his pictures without proper context though. Eddie gives the two an engagement gift, and MJ walks Eddie to his car. There, Eddie tells MJ that he will investigate for context, planning to break into the Roxxon lab and investigate for further context. MJ strongly warns him against this, but Eddie doubles down on his idea instead. He leaves and wishes MJ a happy engagement, driving off (presumably to investigate. MJ tells Peter about this, and adds it onto the list of things to check on that night, but first he needs to track and find the Goblins.

Later that night, the game switches over to Wraith, or Yuri Watanabe, investigating an old Underground (now Goblin) hideout, looking for any ties to the Maggia. She gets caught by some Goblin members, and brutally defeats them all in her first gameplay opportunity. You can notice an extreme difference, her takedowns are far more brutal/lethal, she can't dodge nearly as easily, and relies on swords/guns but also plays similarly to Batman from the Arkham games. Yuri finds some prototype gadgets/guns to use, and explores the base. Upon further exploration, she finds out that some of the tech being used comes from OsCorp, which include gliders. Figuring the typical Green Goblin type gliders would be far too clunky, she instead opts to steal prototype rocket boots, (ones that Phin had built prior to this), and instead uses this as traversal. (NOTE: I know she has wraps that allow her to swing in the comics, but I thought that would be too similar to the Spider-Men. I wanted to differentiate her gameplay as much as possible). The boots allow her to run very fast (on streets and buildings) and jump to very high places without taking fall damage. This information takes her to Oscorp, where she will find the Spider-Men.

Tracking the Goblins to a hideout, the Spider-Men show up and clear them out (you get to choose to play with Miles or Peter). The Spider-Men investigate this hideout, finding experimental OsCorp tech traced directly back to the OsCorp tower, not just a research lab. They're ready to leave when their Spider Sense starts to tingle, a blast appears from nowhere and they both narrowly avoid it. "Two Spider-Men." a voice echoes around them, Peter immediately recognizes Quentin Beck's voice.