Summary

• Over 30 suits were cut from Marvel's Spider-Man 2, focusing on original designs at the expense of classic favorites.
• Peter and Miles having equal suits felt nonsensical as Peter's character history justifies more selections.
• Unlocking suits felt less rewarding as Marvel's Spider-Man 2 lacked unique abilities or perks attached to them.

Before I begin, I just want to say I enjoyed Marvel's Spider-Man 2 when it launched last year. The game gave us some of the best traversal, combat, and visuals a Spider-Man game has had to date, even allowing players to turn off swing assist to have a more physics-based web swinging experience like they did in the fan-favorite Spider-Man 2 movie tie-in from 2004, responding to a complaint some had from the first two games. Despite all of this, there was one area that was a huge letdown to me as the game went on, and that was the suit selection.

With its pre-order content and Digital Deluxe Edition, Peter Parker and Miles Morales had 39 unique suits each at launch, with some returning suits, new designs and adaptations of suits relevant to the story, such as Peter's Black suit due to its ties to the Venom arc. The New Game Plus patch added two more in the form of a Hellfire Gala suit for each hero, and a further "Fly N' Fresh" pack was released at the same time, and was available for $4.99 (or £3.99 here in the UK) to help the charity Gameheads with original '90s inspired designs that Insomniac stated would come to the game for free at a later date.

Gameheads is an Oakland, California-based video game design education program for low-income youth and youth of color.

Insomniac Cut So Many Fan-Favorite Suits From Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Originality Is Great, But Not At The Expense Of The Classics

A pattern that soon emerged was how many original suit designs Insomniac was adding to the game, with various partnerships with game studios, comics artists, concept artists and more. While this made sense for Miles Morales as he has had fewer costume changes in the comics and other media than Peter, it does feel like it's come at the expense of some classic fan-favorite suits both from earlier games or from the comics. I still can't believe Insomniac hasn't adapted the Sensational Spider-Man Ben Reilly suit, for example, although that could also be my '90s nostalgia talking.

Originality is great, but when 30 suits were cut for Peter from the first Marvel's Spider-Man, and 5 from Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. While some of Miles' cut suits, such as the Winter suit, made sense as Marvel's Spider-Man 2 didn't seem to take place in the colder season, ones such as Brooklyn Visions seemed like a missed opportunity when Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has side missions allowing players to explore Miles' school and help his classmates there. As for Peter, some of the cut suits sting more, as I particularly enjoyed the rugged look of the Last Stand suit and the classic Mark 1 Spider-Armor is a nostalgic pick for me, considering the role it played in the 2000 Spider-Man game as a power-up.

Technically, the Classic (Damaged) suit for Peter was cut from Marvel's Spider-Man 2, but the real-time suit damage mechanic essentially recreated this look when wearing the Classic suit anyway.

One of the more baffling choices to cut was the Peter B. Parker suit from Into The Spider-Verse as it would have been great to pair up Miles' looks from the animated film, with a more classic look from Peter with that same style. Peter did get the Into The Spider-Verse version of the Noir suit - and I did have fun playing with the settings to make the open-world resemble a Noir multiverse when wearing it.

But having both a traditional look for Peter and Miles in the style of the animated movie feels like a missed opportunity, especially when Insomniac had already adapted Peter's suit for an earlier game, and it would have been fun to see the duo match more when they team up in the campaign and to tackle city events.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2's creative director, Bryan Intihar, did explain in an interview with IGN that it wasn't as simple as just copying across suits. Even following the release of Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered, suits needed to be made "PS5-sized." He also explained that while the team ensured that every suit from the movies was added to the game - including the highly-requested Amazing Spider-Man 2 suit - Insomniac also simply wanted a new roster of suits.

While this is understandable, when you have arguably the best gameplay and city to explore in the sequel, it would have been nice to do so with the earlier suits, as well as the new additions, rather than an either/or scenario.

Making Sure Peter And Miles Have The Same Number Of Suits Feels Nonsensical

As A Character, Peter Has Been Around A Lot Longer Than Miles

Another reason Intihar gave for the cut suits was that he felt it was important for Peter and Miles to have the same number of suits in the game. While it's clear that Insomniac was playing it up so Peter and Miles had equal billing in the sequel, this excuse just didn't sit well with me. Peter Parker has been around for over 60 years as a character by this point, while Miles Morales' 10th anniversary was only 3 years ago, and even in the in-game universe, Peter has been Spider-Man for nearly a decade by the time Marvel's Spider-Man 2's story takes place, with Miles being a hero for a couple of years.

Peter Parker first appeared 62 years ago in Amazing Fantasy #15, whereas Miles appeared 13 years ago in Ultimate Fallout #4, giving Peter a 49-year head start.

Therefore, it stands to reason that Peter should have more suits than Miles, even in-universe, as he has had more time to develop them over a long superhero career. Miles Morales is great as a character, and clearly has a long future ahead of him in both the comics, movies and Insomniac's games, but despite his popularity, he is still decades behind Peter in of building his legacy and to cut down some of Peter's to ensure it matches a newer character just feels wrong and disrespectful as a long-term fan of the Spider-Man franchise.

Unlocking Suits Felt Less Rewarding In Marvel's Spider-Man 2

Previous Games' Suits Unlocked Special Abilities Or Perks

Being born in the 90s, my first proper Spider-Man game was Neversoft's Spider-Man on the PlayStation. While it was a far more linear game than what Spider-Man fans are used to in recent years - barring titles such as Beenox's Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions and Spider-Man: Edge Of Time - it offered plenty of reasons to replay it, with new suits being unlocked each time the game was completed on a new difficulty, or for achieving feats in the Zip-Line or Item Hunt training areas.

The game didn't make it obvious how to unlock these, and my friends and I would simply figure it out through experimenting and just telling each other, or reading guides in magazines in an age where we didn't have the same internet access we have now... or through the use of cheat codes, not that I ever did that...

The reason I didn't mind replaying these same missions was because suits felt like a proper reward, offering new abilities and perks, such as the symbiotic Black Suit's unlimited webbing, or Captain Universe's Invulnerability. Its sequel Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro took this further with its "Create A Spider" feature that could take the perks unlocked from some suits and add them to the design I liked the most.

This meant I could make the Black suit both invincible and have unlimited webbing, arguing that this would be comics accurate by representing how the symbiote should protect Peter from damage while making its own organic webbing, and definitely not a way to make myself insanely overpowered as I blew through higher difficulties with ease.

Marvel's Spider-Man included a similar kind of feature where unlocking a suit would often come with a new power that would benefit a particular playstyle, such as the Noir suit's "Sound of Silence", which stopped enemies from calling for backup, or the Classic suit's quite frankly overpowered "Web Blossom", which could neutralize an entire group of enemies in one go by firing webs in all directions. Unfortunately, this wasn't present in Marvel's Spider-Man 2, as the suits were entirely cosmetic, so if there was a design I wasn't particularly fond of, I didn't get much else out of it, and it was condemned to merely live in the Suits tab of the game.

The Modding Community Is Bound To Add These Suits Back In On PC

But PS5 Players Will Likely Have To Go Without

There's still hope that some of the cut suits will be added back in via Marvel's Spider-Man 2's yet-to-be announced, but previously leaked DLC, but even then, going off the amount added to Marvel's Spider-Man in its The City That Never Sleeps DLC, this will probably be about 9 per-hero, and that's not enough to cover all the ones that have been cut for Peter. Therefore, the ability to reintegrate these suits - along with other fan-favorite adaptations from other media - will ultimately come down to the modding community when Marvel's Spider-Man 2 eventually comes to PC.

Modders have already added plenty of new suits to Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PC, adapting the aforementioned Sensational Spider-Man suit, as well as ones from popular TV shows such as the '90s Spider-Man animated series, and my personal favorite, Spectacular Spider-Man.

While I have both of Insomniac's previous Spider-Man titles on the PlayStation consoles they were originally released on and PC - mainly for the mods and the ability to take them on the go on my Steam Deck - and I am looking forward to seeing what the modding community has in store, I also can't help but feel like PS5 players will be left in the dust somewhat unless Insomniac and Sony introduce some kind of mod for consoles akin to Bethesda's Creation Club for Skyrim and Fallout 4.

With the Marvel's Spider-Man games being a major selling point for the PlayStation 5, particularly Marvel's Spider-Man 2 due to its current exclusivity, having this community miss out would be a shame. As much as I'd like to hold out hope that future official patches will add in more cut suits from previous games alongside new ones from the comics, considering the previous comments about keeping Peter and Miles' number of suits equal, this just seems unlikely to ever happen.