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  • No Plans For Spider-Man 2 Story DLC, Insomniac Confirms

    No Plans For Spider-Man 2 Story DLC, Insomniac Confirms

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    Image: Insomniac Games / Marvel

    Game developer Insomniac confirmed that the studio has no plans to develop story DLC for 2023’s action-adventure Spider-Man 2, likely disappointing many fans who had been hoping for more content.

    Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel

    On October 18, Insomniac and Sony announced that Spider-Man 2 was coming to PC in January, just 15 months after it launched exclusively on PlayStation 5 to rave reviews. It’s one of the fastest turnarounds we’ve seen for a PlayStation-published exclusive title to make the leap to PC and seems to indicate that Sony is fully committed to bringing its hit games to Steam. But for fans hoping that today’s PC port news would come alongside the reveal of story DLC for Spider-Man 2, well, bad news: That’s not happening.

    In a post on the official PlayStation Blog announcing Spider-Man 2‘s PC port and what fans can expect, Insomanic’s senior community manager Aaron Jason Espinoza confirmed that the studio isn’t working on or planning any further story DLC for Spider-Man 2 on PC or PS5.

    “While we have no additional story content planned for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, we’re delighted to bring all of our previously released post-launch content to the PC version, including New Game+, new suits and color variants, Photo Mode features, and more,” said Espinoza.

    Fans had hoped for Spider-Man 2 DLC after the first Insomniac Spider-Man game received three paid DLC episodes that made up an expansion known as The City That Never Sleeps. However, Miles Morales, a standalone Spider-Man spin-off game launched in 2020, never got DLC. Still, fans were hopeful, even wondering if they’d get more Venom content. Today’s news confirms that Insomniac is moving on from Spider-Man 2. The studio is working on a previously confirmed Wolverine game as well as an unannounced X-Men game, which we learned about via malicious hack in late 2023. A Spider-Man 3 is also reportedly happening, too.

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • One Of The Best Superhero Games Ever Is Free Right Now

    One Of The Best Superhero Games Ever Is Free Right Now

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    Image: Marvel / Firaxis

    The Epic Games Store is once again handing out a very good game for free. This time around it’s Marvel’s Midnight Suns, one of the best games of 2022 and one of my favorite superhero adventures out there.

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    Marvel’s Midnight Suns, in case you missed it, is a turn-based tactical RPG that blends some light life-sim-like elements—like romance and dates—with fantastic tactical combat on par with XCOM and Fire Emblem. But, unlike those games, Midnight Suns lets you kick cars at classic Marvel villains like Venom and Sabretooth. And right now, you can kick cars at Venom for free via the Epic Games Store.

    Marvel

    Don’t get it twisted, though; Midnight Suns is more than just fun gameplay and cool combat. The game also features a compelling narrative that plays out unlike anything seen in the MCU or most other superhero games. I mean, how many superhero movies or games let you spend time with Blade in a book club?

    And don’t let its card-based action scare you away, as the game isn’t a deck builder or anything like that. It just uses cards to represent powers and moves you can use during each turn. However, game director Jake Solomon did express regret about using cards, suggesting that might have been the reason why the game didn’t sell as well as expected.

    “I think cards were a major problem,” Solomon told VGC. “I think it was a good design solution, but I think I was naive about what people would think when they saw the mechanic was cards. Not everyone on my team was behind the idea, but they trusted me.”

    Marvel’s Midnight Suns is a fantastic game and currently available to download for free until June 13 via the Epic Games Store on PC. In case you didn’t realize, this is me saying you should play it. Even if you don’t like the MCU or superhero stuff! But first, turn off the 2K Launcher. It sucks.

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    Zack Zwiezen

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  • Massive Hack Reveals New Venom And X-Men Games Coming By 2030

    Massive Hack Reveals New Venom And X-Men Games Coming By 2030

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    The 1.3 million files leaked as part of the recent ransomware attack on Insomniac Games contain tons of confidential information, including Sony’s projected plans for all of the studio’s upcoming games on PlayStation 5 and beyond. Those alleged roadmaps include a standalone Venom game, a Ratchet and Clank sequel, multiplayer spin-offs, and multiple X-Men games by the year 2030 and beyond.

    Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel

    It sounds like more than fans would have expected, even from Sony’s most prolific first-party studio. Two roadmaps are included in the leak, which was first reported by Australian cybersecurity site CyberDaily and is now widely circulating on social media.

    The first one begins in 2023 with Spider-Man 2 and shows a Venom game arriving in 2025, Wolverine launching in 2026, Spider-Man 3 coming in 2028, a new Ratchet and Clank coming in 2029, and the studio’s first X-Men game releasing by 2030. That slate then culminates with a “New IP” planned for 2031-2032.

    But video game development is messy and release dates are notoriously fickle and projects are often canceled, especially this early on. Another set of slides viewed by Kotaku, labeled “Insomniac Games Roadmap Extended” includes even more projects with slightly different dates. There, Wolverine is expected in 2025, followed by Spider-Man 3 in 2027, X-Men in 2029, a “New IP” in 2031,” X-Men 3 in 2033, and a second “New IP” in 2035. Multiplayer spin-offs are also sprinkled in there, with Spider-Man 2‘s online mode arriving in 2024, Wolverine’s online mode arriving in 2026, and X-Men’s Online mode arriving in 2028.

    That’s a ton of projected games and dates, so here’s a quick summary:

    • 2024: Spider-Man 2 multiplayer
    • 2025: Venom
    • 2025-2026: Wolverine
    • 2026: Wolverine multiplayer
    • 2027: Spider-Man 3
    • 2028: X-Men muliplayer
    • 2029-2030: X-Men
    • 2031-2032: New IP 1
    • 2035: New IP 2

    Insomniac’s future seems clear: spawn an entire new Marvel Cinematic Universe on PlayStation. And while we don’t have tons of details for these upcoming projects, one slide does give a pretty clear rundown of what fans can expect from the standalone Venom game. The game will apparently continue the storyline of Spider-Man 2 and setup Spider-Man 3, briding the games the same way Miles Morales did between the first two. Venom and various Spider-Heroes will be swappable as they fight through “Carnage-infected” NYC boroughs. Insomniac is estimating the game will be about 8-10 hours total.

    What fans can expect from the future of Insomniac’s Spider-Man series is murkier. Some of the materials reference the possibility of Spider-Man 3 being split into two parts. It seems like the studio will then shift fully over to X-Men by the end of the decade, though these plans are obviously subject to change. It’s possible the multiplayer spin-off will provide a live-service model for Sony to keep rolling out new missions and mini-story beats, though unless assisted by outside studios, that amount of post-launch work probably wouldn’t dovetail too well with Insomniac’s other ambitious plans.

    How exactly will Sony be paying for all this? Interestingly, another slide from the leaks shows the apparent terms of the PS5 maker’s licensing deal with Marvel for the X-Men games. The franchise will be all but exclusive to PlayStation until 2035, with over $600 million in “committments.” It’s a huge bet on the comic book mutants. We’ll see how it pays off by the time the PS6 comes out.

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    Ethan Gach

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  • Spider-Man 2 Is The Fastest-Selling PlayStation Game Ever

    Spider-Man 2 Is The Fastest-Selling PlayStation Game Ever

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    Image: Insomniac Games / Sony

    Sony has proclaimed Spider-Man 2 is the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game in the company’s history. The PlayStation 5 exclusive sold 2.5 million copies on launch day alone.

    Spider-Man 2’s New Web Wings Make It Feel Like A Proper Sequel

    Order Marvel’s Spider-Man 2: Amazon | Best Buy | GameStop

    Released on October 20, Spider-Man 2 is Sony’s first major first-party blockbuster to launch only on the PS5, rather than cross-gen on the PS4, which has over double the install base. With just over 40 million PS5s sold so far, that makes the initial sales success of the web-slinging sequel even more impressive.

    Read More: Spider-Man 2 Dev Hints Insomniac Is Open To A Venom Spin-Off

    Reviews have been glowing so far, including Kotaku’s. Despite some misgivings about bloat and a lack of experiementation, I mostly loved my time with Spider-Man 2. The game currently has a 91 on Metacritic, making it one of the most posivitively recieved of 2023. A post-launch update coming by December is expected to add more features like a new game plus mode.

    The original Spider-Man released in 2018, selling 3.3 million units in three days. That narrowly edged out God of War’s record at the time of 3.1 million in the same period. God of War Ragnarok reclaimed the title of fastest selling PlayStation Studios game last year with 5.1 million sales in its first week. We’ll see if Spider-Man 2‘s 24-hour record leads to even greater sales over that same period.

    Sony is currently aiming to sell 25 milion PS5s in the current fiscal year, which would itself be a record-breaking number of new console sales. It’s no doubt relying on Spider-Man 2 being a “next-gen” exclusive to help drive those sales throughout the holiday season, despite competition from a number of other stellar games this year. A new “slim” model dropping in November might also help, despite an increased price tag for the all-digital version.

    Insomniac Games hasn’t yet revealed if Spider-Man 2 will be getting future DLC or a bigger expansion in the vein of Horizon Forbidden West’s Burning Shores adventure. The studio did say it’s checking fan feedback to the game as it plays around with the possibility of a Venom spin-off.

    Update 10/10/2023 4:27 p.m. ET: Sony announced in its latest quarterly results this week that Spider-Man 2 went on to sell over 5 million copies in its first-full week. That puts it just behind God of War Ragnarok, but it’s a more impressive stat overall since the new game is only on PS5, where as Ragnarok on PS4 as well.

            

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    Ethan Gach

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  • Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Found Its Ideal Venom In A Horror Icon

    Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Found Its Ideal Venom In A Horror Icon

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    In a recent interview with Entertainment Weekly, the creative director on Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 revealed that he was nervous about finding the right person to play the sequel’s notorious big bad, Venom. That is, until he heard the unmistakably awesome voice of Candyman actor Tony Todd.

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    Speaking with EW, Insomniac Games’ Bryan Intihaar disclosed that deciding on the right voice actor for Venom was “one of the things I was avoiding for as long as possible because I was so scared of who we were going to get to do the voice.” Although Insomniac’s previous Spider-Games, Marvel’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, garnered high praise from critics as some of the best iterations of the web-slingers, Intihaar said pressure was on to cast the perfect Venom because “people would have a lot of opinions on it.” But Todd, he says, was up to the task.

    “Everything we talked about [with] Venom — that sense of strength, that sense of fear, that sense of overwhelming, so different from Peter — Tony embraces that completely in the performance,” Intihar told EW.

    PlayStation / Insomniac Games

    Read More: PS5 Spider-Man 2 Fans Think They’ve Guessed Venom’s New Identity

    After hearing the booming voice of Tony Todd in the trailer for 2021’s Candyman (in which Todd reprises his role as the title character of the 1992 original), all Intihar’s fears went away. Luckily for Insomniac, Todd had already submitted an audition for the role of Venom.

    Spider-Man 2 PS5 director says Todd is the perfect Venom

    As Intihar has noted in previous interviews, the tone of Insomniac Games’ take on the iconic Spider-Man villain will be darker than some other depictions, treating Peter’s struggles with the symbiote as akin to battling an addiction.

    “We wanted to try something very different, and I don’t think you can get much more different from Doc Ock than you do Venom,” Intihar said. “It’s about power, it’s about strength, it’s about being slighted, it’s about Peter being involved much more in the creation of Venom. I think that’s what attracted us.”

    Narrative director Jon Paquette echoed Intihar’s sentiments, saying Parker’s internal struggle with Venom impacts those closest to him, adding that “there’s a lot of juicy drama that we can get from that.”

    “For us, Venom is the host plus the symbiote,” Intihar said. “You don’t get Venom without both of them being bonded together. What Tony represents is that bond. I think, if anything, casting Tony made us feel more confident in the visual design of the character.”

    Yes, Insomniac Games’ Venom has a grotesque mouth just like in the movies

    Insomniac Games gave fans an exclusive look at Venom’s design in EW’s article, revealing the space-faring symbiote’s numerous teeth and imposing ink-black physique as he roars in the center of a city block surrounded by Humvees. While drafting early concept art for Venom, senior art director Jacinda Chew revealed that the trickiest design components involved his freakish monster mouth.

    “One of the challenges we had throughout production was, how much does [Venom] talk?” she says. “I remember we did some concepts early on [of] does Venom have lips? Does he laugh? Does he smile? Does he frown? It’s a fine line between making this creature scary and intimidating, but then also, I guess, relatable.”

    For all the monster-fuckers out there who fell to their collective knees at Tom Hardy’s Venom having a gaping maw, I hope Spider-Man 2 throws them a bone. Perhaps it could offer up a tiny crumb of the anti-hero’s silly side by having him give Parker and Miles Morales a shit-eating grin before their inevitable two-on-one brawl.

    Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 releases on October 20 for PlayStation 5.

       

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    Isaiah Colbert

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  • Spider-Man 2 PS5 Will Be Darker Than The Tobey Maguire Movie

    Spider-Man 2 PS5 Will Be Darker Than The Tobey Maguire Movie

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    The developers of the upcoming PlayStation 5 sequel Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 say that the game will try to strike a balance between humor and heart while respectfully depicting the darker tones of Peter Parker when he is using his Venom symbiote suit.

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    During Sony’s hour-long PlayStation Showcase last week, we saw over 12 minutes of new gameplay footage of Peter Parker and Miles Morales in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to close out the show. The upcoming PlayStation 5-exclusive action game looked to be going for a similar mix of web-slinging traversal, kinetic fight scenes, and palatable humor as its predecessor, but with the added bonus of Parker being pretty aggressive while wearing his new Venom symbiote suit.

    Read More: Spider-Man 2 PS5 Gameplay Shows Kraven Villain, Symbiote Suit

    Peter’s internal battle with Venom will be like battling an addiction

    While one side of the internet churned out memes comparing the edginess of the Spider-Man 2 game’s Parker to Tobey Maguire’s “Bully Macguire” performance in 2007’s Spider-Man 3 movie (which was a camp masterpiece), another group of fans was in awe of Peter Parker voice actor Yuri Lowenthal’s Sasuke Uchiha-esque performance as a newly jaded web-head under the Venom symbiote’s alien influence.

    Speaking with Eurogamer, Spider-Man 2 creative director Bryan Intihar revealed that Parker’s internal battle with the black parasitic space goop that’s making him so aggro in the game will be akin to a person battling addiction. Unlike the more camp depiction of director Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 3 Venom, Intihar said Peter getting bonded to the symbiote suit is “not something we want to make fun of.”

    “The theme of addiction is prevalent, especially because of the symbiote. We did a lot of research, not only on previous stories with the symbiote, but also just looking at when [Peter] is bonded, what can that feel like? Not to go into too many things about how it plays in the narrative, but we want to treat it very seriously,” Intihar said. “So, it’s about really playing into those themes of addiction, how that can impact someone’s personality, impact the people around them, and you’re going to see that it’s not just how it’s impacting Peter on his own, but also those close to him. You’re going to see that play out throughout the game.”

    Read More: Oh No, The PS5’s Spider-Man 2 Game Has A Silly ‘Puddlegate’ Controversy

    Insomniac Games

    Miles Morales will give Spider-Man 2 players a symbiote-angst break

    While in the PlayStation Showcase footage it is definitely jarring to see Lowenthal’s Parker go from wise-cracking about being New York’s “Spider-Cop” and meekly goading the stoic Silver Sable into giving him a high five to dumping rescued civilians to the ground and doing whatever this is to Kraven’s goons, Intihar and game director Ryan Smith told Eurogamer that Spider-Man 2 won’t be entirely about Peter being an asshole because playing as Miles Morales will offset the game’s darker moments with a bit of levity.

    “I think you saw that in the gameplay reveal,” Smith said. “We have the moments with Ganke and Miles and the Falcon that he’s trailing behind—the Talon drone—and then at the very end, you get that line about Peter changing and Miles saying, ‘You know, he’s never like that,’ right? So we have those human elements, both on the serious side of where we see the symbiote affecting Peter, but also on the lighter-hearted side.”

    Read More: Let’s Rank All The Spider-Man Games, From Worst To Best

    The Marvel Cinematic Universe has been pretty hit or miss with serious scenes, with a tendency for humor to abruptly rob them of their weight. Time will tell whether or not Spider-Man 2 will succeed in balancing its heart and humor with its darker moments, but Intihar is confident that the game landed on the right ratio of wit and drama.

    “What we’ve talked a lot about is—whether it was Marvel’s Spider-Man or Miles Morales—our games are all about still having heart and humor,” Intihar said. “It’s really finding that balance between those darker themes and characters, but also delivering that very human story where there’s a lot of heart and humor… I think that’s what was tricky. But I do think we found that nice balance at the end of the day.”

    Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches later this fall.

       

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    Isaiah Colbert

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