#’Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ is a thrilling, much-needed update in a diverse Spider-verse

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“#’Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ is a thrilling, much-needed update in a diverse Spider-verse”

His fingers might shoot venom, but everything Miles Morales touches turns to gold.

In my 2018 review for Marvel’s Spider-Man, I praised Insomniac’s PlayStation exclusive for allowing me to feel like I was Peter Parker. That game delivered on the experience of being the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man who’s existed in some form since 1962, and its story gave millions of players like me the opportunity to embody a believable arc in the life of an iconic hero.

Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a spinoff and sequel to Marvel’s Spider-Man that delivers so much more. Miles Morales tweaks and tunes the elements of Spider-Man that made that game great, but it goes farther than letting players live Peter’s legend: It introduces us to a whole new saga of the Spider-verse.

Meeting Miles

Miles Morales is a good boy and we love him.

Miles Morales is not Peter Parker; he’s a 17-year-old multiracial Black and Puerto Rican kid with different priorities and experiences. Peter Parker’s game had the difficult task of making Spider-Man’s work fighting crime in New York feel like a massive responsibility, but Miles’ game focuses on the new Spider-Man finding his place in a city that already has a hero. He’s more casual about some things than Peter — his friend Ganke knows his secret and it’s fine — but he’s also more concerned about living up to the Spider-Man name. Miles is more immersed in his community up in Harlem, putting the “neighborhood” back in “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.”

It’s fun to play a Spider-Man game where the Spider-Man in question is a fan of the other, older Spider-Man. Miles’ status as a Spider-fan makes him an ideal protagonist and player surrogate. He’s excited when the player is excited, visibly has fun when we’re having fun, and is constantly in awe that this is his life now. The best known iteration of Miles in visual media may be 2018’s Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, but this Miles is new, extremely charming, and happy to be here. By the end of the game, the question is not “Who is Miles Morales?” but “When do we get to hang out with Miles again?”

Same Flow, New Tricks

Miles' enemies are in for a shocking surprise. — Miles’ enemies are in for a shocking surprise.

One of the smarter choices Spider-Man: Miles Morales makes is expanding upon, instead of rewriting, some of the first game’s success. Miles starts the game off with the map unfogged and with almost the same set of combat moves Pete finishes the last game with, so the player rarely has to re-earn the right to pull off a cool move or unlock a neighborhood’s crime scanner. He can yank guns out of enemies’ hands, swing them around after webbing them up, catch projectiles, and generally do whatever the other Spider-Man can. The skill tree in this game branches out to cover what Peter couldn’t teach him — namely, how to use his Miles-specific special powers.

The first of these powers is his Venom, a bioelectric power that can shock enemies, charge generators, and blow stuff up if he isn’t careful. Miles’ Venom Strikes are a key part of the combat in this game, which is more difficult from the get-go than the first. Earning Venom is easy enough, as it builds up through dodges and landing hits, but using it is a matter of strategy. Venom can also heal Miles, so choosing in a fight to top up your health or spend the Venom bar on a dazzling electrical attack can be the difference between life and death.

The subtle differences are indicative of the care Insomniac put into making this game about Miles and Miles alone.

The second unique ability is camouflage, i.e., Miles’ invisibility power. It’s acquired a little later in the game, but once Miles has invisibility in his arsenal it’s a powerful, upgradable tool for stealth and combat. The camouflage bar is separate from the Venom bar and runs out faster if Miles takes down enemies while invisible, so managing a “now you see him, now you don’t” fighting style is a welcome challenge.

Even though the basic move list is the same, Miles’ brawling style is animated differently to better suit his personality. He’s punchier than Pete, who had a balletic way of taking down enemies and swinging through the city. Miles is more fun and reckless-looking: He flails his arms when he swings from building to building and dips around enemies like he’s trying to break his opponent’s ankles on the basketball court (one character even recognizes him in the Spider-suit because he fights like a literal baller). The subtle differences in what could have been an easy copy-paste job for developers is indicative of the care Insomniac put into making this game about Miles and Miles alone.

Fits on Fits

Spider-Cat, Spider-Cat, does whatever a...come on, you know the rest. — Spider-Cat, Spider-Cat, does whatever a…come on, you know the rest.

Miles Morales may have only debuted in comics in 2011, but in those nine years he’s worn some truly dope suits. Some of them appear in this game, along with innovative suit powers and specialty throwbacks like the Into the Spider-Verse outfit that reanimates Miles’ movements to match the movie’s signature style. The game also takes some of the labor out of collecting new suits and gadgets by paring down the correlation between collectibles and unlocking.

The first Spider-Man game had lab tokens, backpack tokens, crime tokens, and a host of other errand-based currencies to collect to craft Peter’s suits, but Miles Morales only has two types of coin to collect: tech tokens and activity tokens. Activity tokens are earned by completing missions and stopping street crime, while tech tokens are earned by finding caches of enemy weapons hidden around the city. It’s a simpler system and a better one, and leads to unlocking gear upgrades faster than the first game.

Some of his suits aren’t available for crafting, however, and have to be earned by story progression or by completing side missions. These are freebies and generally look amazing, except for the first suit Miles earns early on in the game. It’s a Christmas present from Peter and well…if you thought the Marvel’s Spider-Man game suit was ugly, this one makes the big white spider look like Alexander Wang. Feel free to ignore it entirely.

Any game with a Spider-Cat is clearly a masterpiece.

In addition to new suits, Miles also has a new set of gadgets to collect and upgrade, including a gravity matrix, trip mines, and hard light holograms that fight bad guys on his behalf. These are upgradable along with his web-shooters, and if there’s one thing I would change about this game it’s the fairly limited selection of toys compared to Peter’s arsenal. The web bombs are gone, as are the spider-drones and a few other old favorites. Miles Morales almost makes up for it by using Miles’ Venom powers to add some flair to his gadgets, especially in stealth missions, but those web bombs were so cool!

Counterpoint though: Miles Morales has Spider-Cat. Spider-Cat can fight. Any game with a Spider-Cat is clearly a masterpiece.

Moving On Up

Lots of changes, almost all of them good. I mean, look at that suit. It's a good suit. — Lots of changes, almost all of them good. I mean, look at that suit. It’s a good suit.

Even though I played Spider-Man: Miles Morales on a PlayStation 5, most of what I felt was an “upgrade” to the first game stemmed from the game mechanics and not the visuals. To be clear, the visual experience of seeing even minor characters fully articulated and unique is incredible, as are the lightning-fast load times and the sensation of using Venom delivered via the new DualSense controller. But this is a totally improved game experience beyond the hardware’s bells and whistles.

Miles Morales has a mission replay option that lets players go back and play both main storyline missions and side quests as many times as they like, so there’s no more “blink and you’ll miss it” moments in Spider-Man’s story. If you want to go back and make sure you get the perfect photo mode shot of Miles rescuing a cat, you can go back and get that cat pic with impunity. The photo mode is also improved, with way more filters and fun frames that make sense when you compare Miles’ experience as a Gen Z kid with a smartphone to Peter’s background as a staff photographer.

There are also far fewer boss fights and setpieces that rely on quick time events, which was a gripe I had about the original game. Almost every big moment is either played through with standard combat/traversal or rendered in a well-directed cutscene. Side characters from the first game also pop up as fun nods to the ongoing story around New York — Pete’s friend Gloria is now dating a woman who works for F.E.A.S.T. and Howard’s pigeons have turned to a life of crime. Miles’ collectibles are also more story-based, adding a little gravitas to the action-adventure game’s requisite map of hidden treasures.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales does away with Spider-Man’s coziness with cops, a seemingly deliberate avoidance that leads to Miles and Ganke designing a Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man phone app to track crimes as opposed to using Peter’s police scanners. The app tracks story missions, side quests, and crimes while allowing citizens to call Spidey directly if they really need his help. Ganke helps Miles organize some of this as his “man in the chair,” so the two best friends chat a lot to fill the gaps between missions. It’s a much more fun and user-friendly way to keep track of objectives and leads to some of the game’s best banter.

Miles in His Shoes

Miles' greatest power is his responsibility. — Miles’ greatest power is his responsibility.

As with the combat, Spider-Man Miles Morales is strongest when it emphasizes the differences between Miles and his predecessor. Some of those differences are big and obvious, like Miles fighting villains Peter has never encountered, but the most effective ones are subtle shifts in Miles’ everyday experience. For example, one of Miles’ main antagonists in this game is the Roxxon corporation, who has built an enormous shiny tower in the middle of Harlem and disrupted local businesses (among other nefarious things). The impact of a tech giant coming to Harlem is as complex in the game as it would be in real life, with some people arguing that Roxxon brings jobs to a historically disadvantaged neighborhood and others protesting the loss of Harlem’s character in the face of gentrification.

There are so many moments that touch on Miles’ Black, Puerto Rican identity in small but meaningful ways.

There are so many moments that touch on Miles’ Black, Puerto Rican identity in small but meaningful ways. One of his collectibles is a Wakandan flag, he understands his Spanish-speaking neighbors who need help, he protects a Three Kings Day parade, and all of who he is informs the way he acts as a hero. Later in the game, a character tells Spider-Miles that she’s lived in a city protected by Spider-Man all her life but never had one who looked after Harlem, a poignant moment that touches on the importance of putting a Black New Yorker in a position to be a hero.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales tweaks the original formula not only to fit its character but to show how stunning and exciting the next generation of games can look like. Far from being a rehash, it iterates on what made Marvel’s Spider-Man great and asks the right questions about how and why Miles Morales is different and important. He’s a new kind of protagonist in big release games, and one other franchises should strive to emulate: an unlikely hero whose perspective adds value simply by being his.

Spider-Man: Miles Morales launches Nov. 12 for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5.