Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is fast approaching, with more news and press releases coming at us by the day. Since the first announcement video back in 2021 for the highly anticipated sequel, fans have been theorising who would be the host for the infamous Venom. The first game of the franchise heavily hinted at the surprising choice of Harry Osborn, who, when struck down with a mysterious virus, was put into some kind of stasis along with the symbiote by his father, Norman Osborn.
Related: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Announcement Regarding a Demo, Players Unsurprised, but Disappointed
Since then we’ve had the PlayStation Showcase trailer, which featured not only a huge amount of information regarding the villains and anti-heroes involved, but also the inclusion of the black-suited, Symbiote wearing Spider-Man. This came as a surprise to many, assuming that would come into play further down the line, but apparently not.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Discussions on Addiction
Nobody really expects video games to handle such difficult and hard to discuss topics such as addiction, even in an alien, out-of-this-world way that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will be. However that is apparently exactly what we’re on for with the upcoming sequel, and with the hard-hitting motifs and themes of the previous two games, it’s not a huge surprise. At the recent MomoCon last month, voice actor for the titular character was in attendance, and spoke about the character and his journey in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
“You have no idea… I think they dropped that [footage]… and I’m so glad they finally showed something… We took extra special care for when Spidey is just regular go-happy-lucky Spidey and when Spidey gets something going on [with the Symbiote]. And there’s a lot of colors. You saw some of them in the trailer they just dropped, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.”
When asked how the team and himself approached Peter with the Symbiote, the actor explained he’d not only taken a look at how addiction and addictive behaviours present themselves, but also that the performance had to be realistic.
“We worked really, really hard, as a team to find what was the right thing because sometimes it just sounded comical when I would just, you know, rage… We had to find the levels and we have to root it all in, even though it’s not a real thing, we need to be rooted in reality.”
“…a lot of it came from… We looked at addiction in people and what the behaviors of addiction are. That’s really what we went to for inspiration and to find the levels of it. It’s not always the same, you know, every time. So yeah, addiction would be my simple answer.”
It’s clear that this version of Spider-Man/Peter Parker is going to be understandably more violent, angry and less ‘happy-go-lucky’ in the face of grief and danger as the character was in the previous games. Between the Symbiote and everything that has happened to our favourite wall-crawling hero in the short time we’ve seen this version, it’s not a surprise.
Insomniac Games aren’t afraid to subvert expectations with the Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise, but it’ll be interesting to see how Peter comes across the Symbiote and how long we have access to the new abilities we were shown in the all-too-short gameplay trailer at the PlayStation Showcase.
Legendary horror actor Tony Todd is voicing Venom, so no doubt we’ll be seeing Peter beat the suit (perhaps in the same way as the comics?), before the Symbiote goes and latches on another host. Who that host will be is unknown currently, but Insomniac Games have been very vocal regarding their desire to tell an original story, so who knows.
Will you be buying Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 when it launches? Who do you think Venom’s final host will be? And how long will we expect to be playing as the violent villain Venom for? Or do you think he’ll end up as the Lethal Protector? Let us know in the comments!
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