During the main story, Insomniac controls when you “switch between Pete and Miles,” but there’s content for both in the open world.

The gameplay reveal for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 was entertaining for many reasons, not the least of which is the new character-switching mechanic. At different parts of the demo, players could switch from Peter Parker to Miles Morales, who was closer to a plot point. During the chase sequence, the switching occurred at multiple points.

So how does it work exactly? Speaking to Eurogamer, creative director Bryan Intihar said, “When you’re playing the main story, we control when you switch between Pete and Miles… it’s done in service to the story when we’re making those switches, for sure. So, as you saw on that gameplay reveal, which is a segment of the main story, we are pre-determining those based on what we want to do for how the story plays out.”

However, when exploring the open world, you’ll have content designed around each character and some playable for both. Furthermore, “You’ll be able to – in the open world – freely switch between them with a simple button press,” said Intihar.

“Being able to switch in the open world so quickly between the two characters is really, really awesome. Just being able to pick and choose who I want to play as for a certain activity… it’s been so awesome to have that feature. [It’s] something we probably wouldn’t have explored previously.”

This character switching is also in service of the skill trees. Peter and Miles have unique skill trees but also share a common one. “We want to make sure that when you switch between the heroes, there’s a sense of familiarity. They’re both Spider-Man, you know how to play the game, but you still have that flexibility in that customisation for upgrading each of them with their [skill trees],” says game director Ryan Smith.

“We saw in the gameplay reveal that Miles has the evolved Venom powers, whereas Peter has the Symbiote abilities. And so those, those change a bit of how you play, and you can upgrade those in their respective trees as well.” As for whether you could switch to other characters, like Mary Jane Watson in the previous game, that question went unanswered.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is out in Fall 2023 for PS5. A release date will be announced “soon,” in addition to pre-order information and other details, so stay tuned.