Insomniac Games released Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 in October last year, and like the first game, it did not release with many requested features. The developers originally stated that an update would arrive in December, but it was pushed back until yesterday, March 7th. Here is all you need to know!

New Game Plus:

New Game Plus (NG+) is a relatively newer feature in video games, allowing you to start a brand new playthrough while keeping things from a prior game, and was highly requested for Spider-Man 2. After completing the main story, you will get the option to start a new save file with all the suits, suit tech, gadgets, skills, and abilities you had! This comes with several new features too, including Ultimate Levels, Suit Tech Fusion, and golden gadgets.

While a normal game won’t allow you to level up past level 60, NG+ introduced something called Ultimate Levels. If you reached Level 60 in your original playthrough, or reach it here, you will be able to gain up to 9 additional levels, slightly increasing your health, and allowing you to unlock alternate styles for the Black Suit, Symbiote Suit, and Anti-Venom Suit. This won’t be easy though, it take a lot more XP than usual, so to get Ultimate Level 9, you have a lot of playing to do.

As well, normal games have a line of suit tech, giving you passive buffs during your playthrough to your health, combat, Focus, or mobility. At certain points, you will need to decide between one buff or the other while choosing suit tech, but with NG+ (for a lot of tokens), you will be able to unlock everything in the suit tech. Golden gadgets, meanwhile, are simply cosmetic to gain with your tokens if you want to enable or disable them.

Mission Replay:

Prior to the update, you would have to start an entirely new save file if you wanted to replay a certain mission, side mission, etc. Now, by going into the missions tab in the pause menu, you can replay any completed piece of content at any time.

Fly N’ Fresh Pack:

Insomniac partnered with the non-profit Gameheads to create the Fly N’ Fresh cosmetic pack. While it does cost $5, the first million goes to the Gameheads charity to help low-income teens get jobs in the tech and gaming industry. This pack includes new suits for both Spider-Men and photo mode frames and stickers.

Visual/Cosmetic Features:

• Time of Day: After completing the game, you can change the time of day and weather in the settings menu.
• Tendril Colors: Once the story is complete, you can change the color of Peter’s symbiote abilities as you’d like. This includes the black used earlier in the game, and the white used after unlocking the Anti-Venom suit.
• Photo Mode: Spice up your virtual photography with new stickers and Action Figure Mode. Action Figure Mode allows you to shrink your heroes to the size of action figures to make some funny photos.
• Hellfire Gala Suits: All players will unlock the Hellfire Gala suits for both Peter and Miles once they update the game, being based on the 2019 Marauders #7 and Bernard Chang’s Miles Morales: Spider-Man #8 comics respectively.

Accessibility:

For those who need it, Insomniac has added plenty of new features to allow easier playing, including captions, translations, high contrast outlines, and more! For the developers’ list of all accessibility options (including the ones in this update), click here.

Other Improvements:

• Webbed Suit Changes: Tobey Maguire’s Spider-Man suit, also known as the Webbed Suit, was not great at launch. Luckily, they changed the webbing to be more thinner and more accurate to the Sam Raimi films. As well, the colors have been changed to more muted tones.
• Suit Issues: Several visual issues with certain suits have been fixed, including any deformations or clipping.
• Bugs: Many bugs and other gameplay issues have been fixed for this update.
• General Stability: The game should run smoother now in all respects.

One final thing that was added, yet unintentionally, was a developer Debug Menu. Insomniac has assured they will remove it in a later hotfix, and warned players that using it could corrupt your save files and the progress made on earning PlayStation trophies. Despite these warnings, some players used the menu and discovered chapter titles for upcoming DLC, with the theme of the DLC originally seen in the company’s massive data breach in December. Unfortunately, these were quickly posted to social media and major game news sites alike.

This update was long-awaited, perhaps too long, but made some massive improvements to the game that all were happy to see. Additional content and stories are waiting to be told, but for now, enjoy the game and remember to “Be Greater, Together.”