Web-Shooters Deserve More Nostalgic Love in Marvel’s Spider-Man 3

Highlights

• Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 delivers on the symbiote promise its predecessors established, upping the ante on threats in New York City.
• The abandonment of gadgets for powerful abilities in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 changes combat strategies and marks the decline of such mechanics.
• Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 may need to modify web shooters to maintain relevance and creativity if gadget options continue to dwindle.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 made good on its promise of the alien symbiote playing a significant role and did so by upping the ante on threats affecting the whole of New York City. The symbiote invasion was withheld from players until they discovered it suddenly in-game, while players were already well aware that Peter Parker would be wearing the symbiote at some point and using its destructive, slimy substance to lay waste to Kraven’s hunters in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

Part of this dynamic shift in abilities, not just for Peter equipping the symbiote but also for Miles Morales inheriting a more powerful bioelectricity, was the abandonment of gadgets in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Gadgets weren’t all discarded for the sake of these new powers, but they were certainly back-burned and made to be far less of a consideration in combat strategy. Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 could decide to continue onward in that direction and phase gadgets out further, but Spider-Man’s web-shooters will always be a mainstay and could use some classic yet stylish upgrades.

Possible Upgrades for Web-Shooters in Marvel’s Spider-Man 3

• Web balls fired at enemies in congealed globs for extra damage.
• Wrapping Spider-Man’s fists in webbing for extra damage.
• Massive webs strewn between buildings and surfaces that can ensnare enemies who make contact with them.
• Web constructs, like the massive spiked ball or webbing fist attack from Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions.
• If fall damage became a default feature, Spider-Man could deploy a parachute made of webbing (though fall damage becoming default is guaranteed not to happen based on Insomniac’s attention toward accessibility and how fall damage hasn’t been commonplace in Marvel’s Spider-Man).

Right Now, Marvel’s Spider-Man’s Web-Shooters are Perfectly Basic

Any of these modifications could bolster Marvel’s Spider-Man’s web-shooters, but there’s also an argument to be made that keeping them elementary in design is best practice. Indeed, web-shooters are already incredibly versatile—web-swinging, web-disarming, web-yanking, web-ensnaring, and much more are already part of the device’s capabilities via single strands of webbing.

To reinforce how seminal this simplified take on webbing is, Marvel’s Spider-Man’s titular wall-crawler was already eight years deep into his crime-fighting career and his gadgets were as elementary as they were. Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 could push the envelope on how brilliant Peter and Miles are when it comes to gadgetry while also iterating on a lot of fun webbing functions from older Spider-Man games. Rather, that ship may have sailed already.

With Fewer Gadgets Comes More Expectations in Marvel’s Spider-Man 3

If gadgets in Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 dwindle more than they already have, it might be nice to see web shooters get some modifications to help flesh them out and make them more dynamic. It’s unfortunate that Marvel’s Spider-Man is leaning so heavily into powerful abilities because it will inevitably make gadgets seem obsolete, but if web-shooters are one of the only remaining gadgets when the dust settles it would be neat to see them have fascinating and fantastical attributes themselves.

Insomniac is unlikely to be rid of gadgets wholesale; however, if Peter still seemingly holds onto the Anti-Venom symbiote and Miles has bioelectricity and optic camouflage, these inventive little mechanisms might be a relic of Marvel’s Spider-Man’s past. Each game is going to try eclipsing the last in terms of how spectacular the Spider-Man experience is, and especially if Venom receives a standalone half-sequel it could be difficult to go back to tiny toys that wait on a cooldown and no longer offer much in terms of combat efficiency.