Here’s how character switching in Spider-Man 2 works

Last week, Insomniac Games showed off Spider-Man 2’s seamless transitions between Peter Parker and fellow web-slinger Miles Morales.

These moments in the sequel’s gameplay reveal were impressive, invoking memories of similar fluidity from Insomniac’s fellow PS5 exclusive Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart. But I still had questions. Can we only switch characters at certain story points or will we be able to switch between them freely?

It turns out, the answer is a little bit of both.

“When you’re playing the main story, we control when you switch between Pete and Miles… it’s done in service to the story when we’re making those switches, for sure,” Spider-Man 2’s creative director Bryan Intihar told Eurogamer in an exclusive interview. “So, as you saw on that gameplay reveal, which is a segment of the main story, we are pre-determining those based on what we want to do for how the story plays out.”

When you are in Spider-Man 2’s New York open world, however, it’s different.

“We have content designed around Peter, we have content designed around Miles and we have content where you can play either,” Intihar shared. “You’ll be able to – in the open world – freely switch between them with a simple button press.” This is thanks to the power of the PlayStation 5.

“Being able to switch in the open world so quickly between the two characters is really, really awesome,” Intihar smiled. “Just being able to pick and choose who I want to play as for a certain activity… it’s been so awesome to have that feature. [It’s] something we probably wouldn’t have explored previously.”

Additionally, this character switching will all tie in with Spider-Man 2’s three skill trees – one for Peter, one for Miles and one that is shared.

“We want to make sure that when you do switch between the heroes, there’s a sense of familiarity. They’re both Spider Man, you know how to play the game, but you still have that flexibility in that customisation for upgrading each of them with their [skill trees],” Spider-Man 2’s game director Ryan Smith elaborated.

“We saw in the gameplay reveal where Miles has the evolved Venom powers, whereas Peter has the Symbiote abilities. And so those, those change a bit of how you play, and you can upgrade those in their respective trees as well.”

I asked if there will be the chance to perhaps switch to other characters, such as reporter and Peter’s girlfriend MJ, but I was quickly told I needed to keep the focus on last week’s gameplay.

Ah, well. I tried.

You can read more from my chat with Spider-Man 2’s directors, where they discuss balancing the sequel’s darker tone and the theme of addiction, here.