Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Reveals 65 Suits and Near-Instant Hero Switching

Insomniac Games has revealed more of the open-world systems and customisation coming to Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, including 65 suits, near-instant switching between Peter Parker and Miles Morales and new ways to discover activities across New York.

Senior Creative Director Bryan Intihar presented the new gameplay during PlayStation’s September 14 State of Play, with the footage focusing less on the main story and more on how players will explore and interact with the city.

Insomniac provided further detail in its official State of Play breakdown, covering the expanded city, hero switching, activities and the new Suit Styles system.

The sequel’s map is nearly twice the size of the original game after expanding beyond Manhattan into Brooklyn and Queens. GLN recently looked more closely at how Insomniac expanded Marvel’s New York, including locations such as Coney Island, Grand Army Plaza and the lower-rise neighbourhoods of the new boroughs.

That larger world also changes how players move between Peter and Miles.

Peter and Miles Can Switch Almost Instantly

Players will be able to switch between the two Spider-Men while freely exploring the open world, with the PlayStation 5 allowing the transition to happen almost instantly.

The feature goes beyond simply choosing which character to control. Peter and Miles each have separate side stories, while some activities can be completed by either Spider-Man and others are tied to a specific hero.

Miles can respond to problems involving Brooklyn Visions Academy, while Peter receives other requests through the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man app.

A PlayStation hands-on published on September 15 also confirmed that the pair share some side activities, gadgets and core upgrade paths while retaining their own missions and unlockable skills.

Insomniac has redesigned how those activities appear in the world as well. Instead of relying entirely on icons placed across the map, players can encounter visual clues while moving through New York, including Kraven’s Talon Drones and other environmental signals.

The Spider-Men can also use augmented-reality technology in their masks to highlight nearby opportunities, while the Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man app continues to provide requests from people around the city.

District progression now rewards players for completing activities within individual areas. Those rewards include upgrades, suits and access to fast travel, giving optional content a more direct connection to exploration.

The State of Play footage also demonstrated the new fast-travel system, which allows players to move rapidly across the expanded city once the relevant district progress has been earned.

From my perspective, the important change is not simply that Spider-Man 2 has more activities. Insomniac is trying to make those activities feel more connected to the physical city rather than turning New York into a screen full of map markers.

Traversal itself is faster as well. Web Wings can be combined with traditional web-swinging and wind tunnels, helping Peter and Miles cross the lower-rise areas of Brooklyn and Queens without replacing the swinging system that remains central to movement.

Spider-Man 2 Includes 65 Suits and More Than 200 Styles

Insomniac also used the presentation to clarify the scale of Spider-Man 2’s suit collection.

The game will include 65 suits drawn from original Insomniac designs, Marvel comics and Spider-Man films.

That does not mean there are more than 200 separate suits.

The new Suit Styles system adds alternate colour shaders to selected costumes, increasing the number of available combinations to more than 200 ways of outfitting Peter and Miles.

Insomniac is also offering 10 exclusive suits with the Digital Deluxe Edition, split evenly between the two Spider-Men.

Peter receives the Apunkalyptic, Stone Monkey, Tactical, Aurantia and 25th Century suits. Miles receives the EnC0ded, Biomechanical, Red Spectre, Tokusatsu and Agimat suits.

The designs were created with artists from across games, comics and film, including Jerad Marantz, Victoria Ying, Raf Grassetti, Kris Anka and Anthony Francisco.

The wider gameplay reveal also showed Peter’s symbiote abilities and Spider-Arms alongside Miles’ expanded bioelectric powers. Both characters retain distinct abilities despite sharing parts of the game’s gadget and progression systems.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches exclusively for PlayStation 5 on October 20, 2023.