Marvel's Spider-Man took the world by storm in 2018. Insomniac Games introduced the world to a brand-new take on the Spider-Man mythos, one where you swung across the New York City skyline saving those in need, and fighting some of the wall crawler's biggest threats. They then released the highly acclaimed spin-off, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, giving us a more personal story about the young hero from Brooklyn. Five years after the beginning of this universe, the PlayStation Studio is hoping lightning strikes for a third time with the release of Marvel's Spider-Man 2.
Peter and Miles will have to fight the likes of Kraven the Hunter as well as Venom and a slew of new threats. The game introduces the symbiote and the incredible power that the user wields. Players will not be restricted to playing one Spider-Man but can switch between Miles and Peter. We got to speak with Peter Parker actor Yuri Lowenthal about his experience working alongside the legendary talent Tony Todd (Venom), the responsibility of being Spider-Man, and the impending Video Game strike.
MICHAEL THOMAS: First off, everything we've seen from it looks absolutely incredible, and that kind of leads off with my first question. Spider-Man PS4 came out in 2018, and Peter went through a lot of traumatic events in that story. What was it like getting back into that mindset and seeing the evolution of Peter Parker
LOWENTHAL: It was great. When I first got the outline to the game, because when they said they were gonna do it and they sort of thought about the story, I got an outline, and it was super exciting. And yet, I'm like, “Oh yeah, so there's more trauma for Peter. It's not gonna get any easier on Peter. Oh no!” And then I realized that nothing ever gets easier for Peter, so it kind of tracked. But one of the things that immediately keyed me in was how all the relationships change, both with relationships that he's had in the previous games with characters like Miles and MJ, but also getting to see and develop relationships with people like Harry, which is a hugely important relationship in this game. So, that was super exciting.
Then, of course, knowing that I would get the symbiote and would have to play a fundamentally different kind of Peter Parker for a while was also super exciting because actors love to play villains. But I wasn't aware of how hard it would be to make Peter bad. Peter is your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, and making him sort of act in a way that's antithetical to who he is, putting people before him to becoming selfish, trying to take care of people to becoming violent, all of those things, and finding a way to make that…You know, in the past, sometimes if you just slap the symbiote on Peter and all of a sudden he's Bully Maguire, it can be comical at times, and that was something that they really wanted to take a great amount of care with in this game. They didn't want it to feel like a joke or a parody or a meme. So, while I'm sure this game will spawn a million memes, they wanted to keep it grounded, and that all happened with the relationships and power dynamics and how things change from the last games, both the first game and the DLC and the Miles game that we've seen. So, I'm just excited for people to go on that journey with us because I was excited to get into it
I'm glad you brought up the symbiote and its effect on Peter because you're right, it can go in vastly different extreme ways. You mentioned kind of bringing that darker side of Peter; you have played darker characters before, villainous characters before, like Sasuke [Uchiha]. Did you have to channel that type of energy when finding Peter's voice in the symbiote?
LOWENTHAL: Yeah, for sure. While I did not consciously go, “I gotta bring some Sasuke to this,” some of the overlap is inevitable. And Sasuke is interesting because he was sort of the first character where I got to do that or where I had to dig into that area. Pre-Sasuke, I was bright-eyed and young and I played bright-eyed young heroes, you know, naive, happy-go-lucky characters, and Sasuke was sort of like the first. But now I've played Sasuke for 18 years, and I've got a connection to that dark place in a way that I might not have really had before, and it definitely came in handy. But again, they wanted to make it very grounded and believable, and for Peter to have an arc. He doesn't just flip a switch and now he's bad, he gets powers and has the responsibility start to get taken away, the responsibilities eroding, and we all know how important responsibility is to this franchise and to Peter. So watching that and sort of tracking how that gets worse and worse and its effect on Peter was very important to Insomniac.
You mentioned his relationships and how vital of a role those play in this story. This isn't the first time we've met Peter again since that first game, we did have the DLC. He was also in the Miles Morales game. What is his relationship like with Miles, and what was it like working with [Nadji] Jeter, who's also voicing Miles Morales?
LOWENTHAL: I mean, me and Nadji now have known each other since that first game. Much like Peter does in this game with Miles, I've gotten to watch Nadji grow up and come into his own and really tune into his power and who he is. So, while that doesn't happen with every game, you don't get to enjoy that mirroring of a relationship in real life and in a game, it just so happened that it worked out that way for this. I love seeing that relationship play out in the game because the first game was more Pete's game, and the second game was obviously more Miles’ game, and this one is very evenhanded. Both of them get powerful, powerful journeys, and you really get to see Miles come into his own and really stand in his power. At certain points throughout the game, the relationship tips where Miles is guiding Pete, where Pete loses his way, and Miles has to become very heavy-handed—without giving too much away—he steps beyond the mentorship and into tough love.
It's one of those things where the symbiote, Venom, all of those are elements that we are very familiar with, but we don't really see Miles interact in this side of the story, right? By the time Miles is introduced, this part of Peter's life has already been told with his relationship with Venom and the symbiote, so I'm really fascinated to see where he fits into that story and the relationship between the two kind of build from there.
LOWENTHAL: Again, one of the things that I think Insomniac does well, and they do it again with this, is they take characters and scenarios that we know very well—we know Venom, we know how that plays out, we know Miles, we know Pete—and they give us those things that we love about those characters that we're looking forward to seeing in that kind of story, but it's turned a little bit so that you have to stay on your toes. There's different stuff in there, and they've always been really good at creating that.
So, Miles, in the last game, had Spider-Cat. If you were to have any furry companion, what would Peter's Spider-Pal be?
LOWENTHAL: Oh my god, that's a good question, and you can tell your friend I said that. If Pete had a furry companion…It's funny because I do liken Pete and myself to a certain extent, and I feel I have a lot of Parker characteristics. I mean, he's kind of like a golden retriever, like he's sort of lovable and loyal, to a fault almost. Although, he might not be as dumb as a golden retriever because Pete's like a scientist. I'm more of a golden retriever because I'm not as smart as Peter Parker is. But other than giving you a really weird answer, a sloth would be really cool to see Pete swinging around the city with a sloth on his back.
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