Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 perfected the open-world game |
For gamers, January is a holy season of rest and relaxation. The release cadence slows to a crawl, the news cycle cools, and all that spare energy goes straight to the backlog. I’ve spent the month digging into one that’s been on mine for a few years: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. It’s been said before (many, many, many times), but holy shit you guys, this game absolutely rules.
I recognize I’m late to the party here. Released in 2023 for the PlayStation 5, Spider-Man 2 continues storylines established by developer Insomniac Games in 2018’s Spider-Man and 2020’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, both of which were appointment playing. Given that Insomniac’s forthcoming Wolverine is set in the same canonical MCU-lite universe, I was bound to catch up on Spider-Man 2 eventually. But the past few years have offered a glut of time-consuming open-world games, and I couldn’t bring myself to pick up another one. Little did I know that Spider-Man 2 offered the most elegant open-world design I’ve seen in years.
Open-world games generally follow one of two philosophies. Games like Elden Ring or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild are steeped in intrigue, offer minimal direction, and let players explore. Then there are the........