They’re just little guys. Little spider-guys.
As part of a new blog detailing tips and tricks to get the best out of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2‘s updated photo mode when the game launches this week, Sony and Insomniac Games confirmed that as part of the game’s post-launch support, players will eventually get to shrink Peter Parker and Miles Morales down into bite-sized versions of themselves in a feature called “Action Figure Mode.” Although no established time of arrival for the feature was given in the post, a small—literally—teaser of it was given in the form of a picture of teeny-tiny Peter Parker leaning off of a street sign.
Like many things about Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the returning Photo Mode feature includes plenty of refinements and updates on the changes to the feature iterated on in the Remastered PC/PS5 re-release of the original game as well as its successor, Miles Morales. As well as returning upgrades like adjustable custom lighting and the ability to switch costumes mid-shoot from past games, new functions—beyond things like Action Figure Mode arriving post-launch—include background filters to create artsy portrait shots, or the ability to select from tweakable pre-posed stances for Miles and Peter, letting you always get a chance at a slick shot even if you didn’t quite pause your game at the perfect moment.
The blog itself has a ton of cool tips and tricks about how to get the most out of the plentiful options in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2‘s photo mode, like how best to use in-game and artificial lighting in tandem to evoke mood, or simple tips about how best to re-frame shots. It’s a neat thing to peruse through, especially as the Photo Modes in Insomniac’s Spider-Man games are actually some of its best features. Longtime io9 readers are probably very aware at this point that I love snapping Spidey shots in these games to share both in my work on the site and across social media. There’s something about taking pictures of Miles and Peter this way that feels like a fun way to not just appreciate things like Insomniac’s clever visual trickery with suits like ones inspired by classic comic book aesthetics or the quirky animated appearance of the Spider-Verse movies, but to engage with an aspect of Spider-Man’s legacy in a way beyond the lens of combat and web-slinging traversal that you spend most of your time doing in these games anyway.
Peter of course has a long legacy of photojournalism in the comics—and hell, started that career taking pictures of Spider-Man, after all! And while there are side missions across Insomniac’s Spider-Man games that engage with that idea (like the original’s landmark-snapping side activity), there’s something about you as a player stepping out of inhabiting these heroes’ directly and instead examining them through that lens of photojournalism that feels truly fitting for the fantasy of Spider-Man that these games have excelled at evoking.
Here’s a few more pictures of Miles and Peter I shot over the course of playing Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 for review to give you an idea of at least some of the things you’ll be able to do now that the game is out in the world.
Screenshot: James Whitbrook/Gizmodo, Insomniac Games/Sony
Leave a Reply