Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Originally Had a Symbiote-Possessed Sandman

For all the cool things that Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has to offer, some concepts didn’t make it. Speaking on IGN’s Beyond, senior creative director Bryan Intihar revealed that the Symbiote possessing Sandman was one such idea.

“I will tell you… I haven’t told anybody this. We did have a Venomized Sandman concept.” Instead, the current game has Peter and Miles battling Sandman in a huge set piece before eventually besting him and nothing else. Initihar said it didn’t happen due to the production’s scale and the amount of time available.

“It was hard enough to make Sandman. No, nothing like, ‘You can’t do this because of this extra Y or Z.’ I think it comes down to more of like, can we do it with the time we have and at the quality we want to hit? As I mentioned, there was a discussion to a point where it’s a concept image of Venomized Sandman. Super cool idea.

“Maybe one day… I’m probably getting in trouble for saying it, but whatever. It’s a really cool image. It’s really cool. We were never going to get it done at the quality we wanted to, and it was going to be… it was enough of a challenge to make regular Sandman cool.

“And I’m like, ‘Okay, now we’re going to do it as a Venomized version?’ This team went above and beyond anything I could have ever expected when we first started this. So I was like, ‘We’re not going to do it.’ So it’s more about that.”

On the bright side, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 does a great job of showcasing how the Symbiote alters Peter’s behavior when possessing him. Then there’s Venom, one of the best parts of the game to the extent that fans are hoping for a spin-off (which Insomniac will consider, based on fan feedback).

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is available for PS5 – check out our review here. With over 2.5 million copies sold in 24 hours, it’s currently PlayStation’s fastest-selling first-party title. Stay tuned for details on future updates.