Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Puts An Impressively Gross Spin On The Lizard

Kraven the Hunter and Venom might be the main event villains of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, but Peter Parker and Miles Morales will have their hands full with another supervillain when the game launches later this month. One of the new additions to the rogues gallery is the Lizard, a fan-favorite adversary that has menaced Spider-Man since the 1960s. For this video incarnation of the antagonist, developer Insomniac Games has come up with some impressive and creepy new technology that puts a disturbingly realistic spin on the character.

“There’s a more classic Lizard, which has the lab coat, the pants,” Insomniac Games senior art director Jacinda Chew explained in a PS Blog post. “He’s smaller and human-sized. He’s also able to communicate to Peter. But our version of Lizard–he’s leaner, meaner, bigger and greener, in all ways. He’s not wearing clothing, and he’s lost all humanity. So, we’re not able to communicate with him. That’s a really big difference. We know that people want to see Lizard in his lab coat, and then they want to see what happens and how he gets big. We have fun dropping breadcrumbs for the players.”

First, the good news for longtime Spider-Man fans is that Lizard will appear in a form that’s accurate to his comic book appearance. Mutated but still dressed in a tattered lab coat and ripped pants, this version of Lizard is described as still being capable of speech before he transforms into his more dangerous and savage form.

For this untamed version of the Lizard, Insomniac went all in on creating a hulking hybrid. As seen in the previous trailers, Lizard is covered with spikes, is incredibly strong, and moves in a way that conveys the primal ferocity of this monster. The PS5 hardware helped simulate realistic muscle movement, but perhaps the most impressive feat here is that the Lizard actively sheds his skin as he moves around. That’s probably not dust, you’re seeing on the Spider-Men after they’ve tussled with their reptilian foe.

“Again, we also looked at what that looks like in real life,” Chew added. “Our artists used a program to simulate how the skin might move fluttering in the wind.”

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches for PS5 on October 20, and while the limited-edition PS5 consoles that sport an arachnid-themed design are currently sold out, you can pick up a regular PS5 bundle that’ll include a digital download code for the game.