LogInShe's "a little OP" but it's fine.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 brings back and improves many elements from the first game, and Mary Jane's stealth missions are one of them. Let's just say this part was not among the favorites in the previous title, and Insomniac Games had to know it, and even though Mary Jane is much cooler and more effective now, why did the team decide to bring it back? There are spoiler ahead, so be warned.
The studio's senior creative director Bryan Intihar told IGN that they considered not including the missions this time, but there's no variety in that, so Insomniac decided to make the experience better and more fun to play. Now Mary Jane has a powerful stun gun, which goes through enemies faster than Peter and Miles could.
"We had two choices. We could say, 'All right, we'll make it easy and just not do it.' And everybody would go, 'Great. No MJ missions.' Or we could say, 'Hey, we've talked about showing the world from all different angles. We're going to make her moments better. We're going to take on the challenge. We're going to make people like playing as her.' We pick and choose our spots. We knew we had to make her more of a proactive, capable person. And if she's a little OP, I don't give a shit. She's fine. I don't care."
Image credit: Insomniac Games
An important outcome of this decision is the fact that MJ doesn't have any superpowers but is still a "capable hero". This was partly why the studio included her as a playable character in the final mission. It even though about letting players control MJ riding her bike, but that was ultimately removed in favor of other content.
"In Spider-Man 1, there was a really, really early, super-early in development, we never made it, but it was part of a story treatment where Pete was going to be injured, and he could barely walk," Intihar said. "She was going to actually try to get him to safety, and she was going to grab one of his web shooters and she was going to put it on, actually fire at enemies that were trying to get to them but that never happens. I think that's where the web-shooter idea came from, because I was like, 'Let's give her the ability to stun enemies in the first mission.'"
Image credit: Insomniac Games
Spider-Man 2 has been a huge success from the beginning: it sold 2.5 million copies in just a day and even got praised by Masahiro Sakurai, the creator of Kirby and Super Smash Bros., who called it a "masterpiece."
Read the interview with Intihar here and join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.