Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is already shaping up to be one of the biggest games of 2023, continuing the epic story from Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. This time, Miles and Peter team up to take down Venom, whose arrival throws their lives and the entirety of New York City into turmoil.
The latest game in the series is set less than a year after Spider-Man: Miles Morales and builds on the events of the past two games. Even though more than five years have passed since the release of Spider-Man, it helps to have that game’s story fresh in mind when you’re going into the sequel.
Whether you skipped one of the previous games or just need a refresher, here are six key plot points you need to keep in mind before you play Spider-Man 2:
6. Peter’s Relationship with Yuri
Introduced at the beginning of Spider-Man, Yuri Watanabe is a detective who served as Peter’s main contact within the NYPD. They form a friendship while working together to take down Wilson Fisk, which leads to Peter and Yuri both saving each other’s lives during Marvel’s Spider-Man.
In The City That Never Sleeps DLC, Peter and Yuri again team up to take down Hammerhead during the struggle between factions of the Maggia crime syndicate. Throughout the game, Yuri’s fellow officers lose their lives, leading her to take increasingly violent tactics against criminals. By the end of the DLC, Yuri leaves to seek justice her own way, cutting off contact with Peter.
5. Why Harry is Really Missing
Just like in Spider-Man comics and movies, Harry Osborn is a childhood friend of Peter’s. In Spider-Man, Harry’s mother passed away from a genetic disease, which Harry inherited. For most of the game, Harry is missing, which his father Norman Osborn says is because he’s helping to manage Oscorp’s operations in Europe.
In reality, Harry is being kept in a top-secret stasis chamber to halt the progression of the disease until a cure can be found. Throughout the game, Peter and Mary Jane discover what’s really happened to Harry, but he remains in stasis.
The end of Spider-Man includes a shot of Harry still undergoing his “treatment,” held in a tank and covered with a mysterious black webbing that will certainly look familiar to any Spider-Man fan. In Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Harry wakes up and is taken out of stasis.
4. How Peter Stopped Devil’s Breath
A large part of Spider-Man revolves around Devil’s Breath, an experimental medical treatment created by Oscorp. During the game’s events, Devil’s Breath isn’t working as intended, instead acting as a deadly, contagious disease. Doctor Octopus releases the disease in Manhattan, intending to save the city by introducing the cure once Norman Osborn is revealed as Devil’s Breath’s creator.
Peter manages to recover a vial of the antidote from Doc Ock but must choose between giving it to Aunt May, who’s been infected, or using it to mass-produce a cure. Peter chooses to save New York by producing the cure, but Aunt May dies as a result.
3. The Story of Mr. Negative
May Parker’s boss, Martin Li, is revealed to be Mr. Negative in Spider-Man. He seeks revenge against Norman Osborn for injecting him with Devil’s Breath, which caused an accident that took his parents’ lives.
Mr. Negative attacks a rally for Mayor Osborn in Spider-Man, taking the life of Miles Morales’ father, Jefferson Davis, in the process. Jefferson’s end inspires Miles’ mother, Rio Morales, to run for mayor, and his uncle, Aaron Davis, to take a bigger role in Miles’ life while still acting as the Prowler.
2. Who Knows Miles’ Secret Identity
Despite talking a lot about how important it is to keep their identities a secret, both Peter Parker and Miles Morales do a pretty bad job of it. By the end of Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Miles lets the truth slip to his mother, his best friend Ganke, and his uncle Aaron, aka the Prowler.
Miles’ childhood friend Phin Mason also learns his secret identity over the course of the game, after Miles discovers that she’s also the villain known as the Tinkerer. However, after maintaining a strained relationship with Miles throughout the game, Phin sacrifices herself in the end to save him along with the rest of Harlem.
1. Mary Jane and Peter’s Reporting
The City That Never Sleeps DLC’s final chapter focuses on antagonist Silver Sable. A native of the fictional nation of Symkaria, Silver Sable leads a mercenary group that Norman Osborn hires to combat Mr. Negative’s Inner Demons gang. During the DLC, it’s revealed that Silver Sable is arming rebels in her home country to fight a dictator but is thwarted by Hammerhead. After learning this, Mary Jane Watson departs for Symkaria to cover the conflict as a reporter.
At the beginning of Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Peter also heads to Symkaria to work with Mary Jane as a photographer. Upon returning to New York, Mary Jane writes a book based on her reporting in the country.
