I’ve been enjoying the Spider-Man 2 movie game lately, realizing that it's aged pretty well. Sure, the visuals aren’t too great, but web swinging is fun, combat is snappy, and there’s very little to complain about.
My enjoyment led to watching various retrospectives on YouTube about the acclaimed movie tie-in game. This video from Always Nerdy revealed plenty of interesting bits, including cut levels that would have featured Lizard and Kraven the Hunter. While these classic foes would make it to the Spider-Man 3 movie game (and Insomniac’s sequel, oddly enough) their henchmen and Calypso also made it to the post-game arena mode.
Naturally, seeing this fun way to use cut content made me wonder why Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 didn’t have an arena mode. Insomniac’s open-world title has plenty of symbiote bosses that were cut from the game and could have been reused for this theoretical arena mode. We know game development is harder and more expensive now, which is why modes like this make us nostalgic for the old days.
The development of this sequel continues to astound players, as more could have been done to make this PlayStation title feel special. Granted, this game doesn’t feel incomplete and has a lot of memorable story moments, but fans can’t help but go “That’s it?” upon completion. It seemed like the game was going to get some Daredevil and Spider-Verse DLC, but those hopes were dashed once the PC version was announced.
With so much content seemingly left on the cutting room floor, a lot of which was revealed by that unfortunate Insomniac data breach, an arena mode for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 could have used some of this. Taking on Phage, Lasher, Agony, and Riot as Spider-Peter, Spider-Miles, or Venom in various stages after fighting off enemy hordes would have been a lot of fun.
Fans often make fun of modern Spider-Man games for copying aspects of the Batman Arkham series, but Insomniac should have considered making a similar post-game challenge mode like Rocksteady’s superhero title. That way, fans can test their stealth skills as Peter and Miles if they start to get bored with the combat. At the least, it would have given players something to do after beating the game.
Obviously, not every AAA game has to be packed to the brim with content and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a pretty fulfilling title in its own right. There’s New Game Plus for fans who want a harder version of the campaign and some extra costumes that were given away for free. But when you consider how quickly this PlayStation game faded to the background, some sort of mode that used these cut enemies would have been beneficial in the long run.