Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 cut Venom’s fire weakness because it was too much to communicate to players

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 director, Bryan Intihar, has an answer for why the sequel’s take on Venom isn’t weak to fire like his comic book counterpart.

For reference, in the comics that inspired Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Venom has a couple of distinct weaknesses like high-frequency sounds and fire.

However, the gamers observed that in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the villain is completely invulnerable to fire. According to an IGN interview, this isn’t a mistake but a deliberate design choice aimed to enhance gameplay.

In his interview, the director of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Bryan Intihar, explained that the “Fire doesn’t harm the Symbiote and Venom in this game, did you notice that?”.

“Originally, there were about five different weaknesses of the Symbiote, and we were concerned about how to communicate all these different elements,” he added.

For those think that the Insomniac Games is covering up their error, there are audio and visual cues within Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 that confirm the design choice.

“We were like, ‘you know what, for our universe, we’re just going to keep it to high-frequency sound,” Intihar added. “Someone was like, ‘Why is Harry not getting hurt by the fire?’ and it’s like, if you noticed, in the rescue Tombstone mission, Pete purposefully says, ‘Is the fire bothering you?’ and he goes, ‘no, I don’t feel anything’, just so I can make sure that we cover our bases.”

Despite this slight deviation from the comics, both critics and players unanimously agree that the game is a resounding triumph of an open-world superhero game.

Insomniac’s take on Venom in particular has been praised, with GamesRadar’s Joe Donnelly hailing it as the best version of the Symbiote since the 1995 16-bit Spider-Man.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has such a vibrant open world that Joe wants Insomniac to build a GTA 6-rivaling crime sim.