Marvel's Spider-Man 2's Flashbacks Perfectly Set The Stage For A Different Kind Of Game

Insomniac's games take place eight years into Peter Parker's time as a superhero, with him already having graduated college and balancing protecting the city with other adult responsibilities. This gave players a version of the character who was notably older than his movie and TV counterparts, as most recent TV shows and both Andrew Garfield and Tom Holland's depictions of the character showed him as a high school student or just shortly after graduating — even though Garfield's version graduated early in, he wasn't shown starting college — and with the exception of the first part of the 2002 movie, the Tobey Maguire-starring movies have largely shown Peter as being college-aged, matching his age in the 90s and 2000s animated series.

[WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for the Marvel's Spider-Man games.]

From a gameplay perspective, having Peter as a more established hero let Insomniac use more finessed web-swinging animations to make swinging through the city more satisfying from the outset, and let the studio fill their take on the Marvel Universe with several Easter eggs from the hero's past for worldbuilding. It also ensured that players could access an array of gadgets Peter had worked on over the years to offer more variety in combat.

Insomniac's Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has some amazing side missions and activities, a few of which feature some of the best cutscenes in the game.

had several flashback sequences to Peter's first days as Spider-Man, with a sequence in Midtown High School with Harry Osborn that established the duo's goals to use science to "," another with Aunt May in the Parker home in Queens in which she calmed Peter down after he first started to struggle with the media's response to his heroics — albeit without knowing he was Spider-Man at this point — and another involving Peter's first meeting with J Jonah Jameson about getting a job as a photographer at the Daily Bugle. These sequences dove into familiar territory for fans