Insomniac Games’ superhero action-adventure game, Marvel’s Spider-Man, is easily one of the best video game adaptations of the titular friendly neighborhood vigilante. While there have been a fair few Spider-Man video game adaptations throughout the years, nothing comes close to the spectacle and heart of Insomniac’s title.
What made Marvel’s Spider-Man one of the most popular and best-selling games on the PlayStation 4 back in 2018 was the original story that Insomniac crafted for their game.
While the story took obvious inspiration from the classic Spider-Man mythos, it featured a layer of its own twists and turns to keep the title engaging for the players.
With the immense popularity and fanfare the 2018 original received, a sequel was bound to happen. However, before a direct sequel was announced for the game, Insomniac released a spin-off, which acted as both a narrative continuation and standalone adventure for the other Spider-person in New York – Miles Morales.
Here’s a complete story recap of 2020’s Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales to get you up to speed before jumping on to the sequel, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales story recap to get get you up to speed before you play Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
New York’s only Spider-Man
Miles’ story picks up about a year after the conclusion of events in Marvel’s Spider-Man. Having been trained by Peter for almost a year, Miles has become proficient with using his newfound “spider powers.”As soon as the game starts, Miles is thrust into a dangerous situation where he and Peter escort an NYPD convoy.
The police convoy is carrying some of the most notorious criminals to the newly rebuilt RAFT. However, a mishap caused by Miles’ mild recklessness causes the convoy to collapse and the criminals to go free. Peter and Miles try to contain the situation but are overwhelmed by Rhino, who is also one of the inmates from the convoy.
Rhino overpowers Peter, leaving him partly unconscious. However, Miles soon comes to Peter’s rescue and awakens his “Venom”powers while trying to save Peter from Rhino. After defeating Rhino, Miles and Peter get to meet Simon Kreuger, the head of Harlem-situated private energy corp – Roxxon.
Kreuger thanks the Spider-Men for their help in incapacitating Rhino and promises to take care of transporting the mech-suit-wielding brute back to RAFT. After the rather lethal encounter against Rhino, Peter tells Miles about his newfound job as a photographer and that he will travel to Symkaria for a few weeks.
Peter also gifts Miles his very first Spider-suit and gives him the responsibility of keeping New York safe at his behest, making Miles – New York’s only Spider-man for a few weeks.
Rise of Underground and Roxxon’s true intentions
After getting his new suit, and the overbearing responsibility to keep New York safe in the absence of Peter, Miles returns to his home. There he meets his childhood friend, Phin. Although Phin seems quite lively, Miles does find her a little distracted. The next few days go quite well, with Miles helping his neighborhood and enjoying his time as the new Spider-Man.
During this time, Miles also meets up with his uncle, Aaron Davis, who quickly figures out his identity, but promises to keep it a secret. However, peace was short-lived as a new criminal organization, called the Underground strike New York, during Miles’ mom, Rio Morale’s political campaign.
During the scuffle between Miles, Underground, and Roxxon, it is revealed that the leader of the Underground syndicate is none other than Phin herself, going by the alias – Tinkerer. And while Miles manages to thwart any potential loss of life during the Underground’s attack, he is targeted by Roxxon as a threat. Miles is about to be shot by the Roxxon soldiers, but his newfound cloaking powers save him.
It is later revealed that Roxxon does not intend to do good for the people of New York and Harlem; instead, Kreuger aims for profits, even if it comes at the cost of people’s lives. Roxxon also wanted to shift the blame for Underground’s attacks from themselves to someone else, and they found Spider-Man to be the best scapegoat for that.
New suit, new beginnings
Although Miles was traumatized by the incident at the campaign, he finds encouragement to keep fighting for the city after seeing his mom unfazed by the attack. Ganke also helps boost Miles’ “morale”(no pun intended) by calling him THE Spider-Man, who is more than just a shadow of Peter.
Miles and Ganke then start working on a new Spider-suit, salvaging what they can from Peter’s gift to create a different suit that fits Miles’s personality and “uniqueness.”With his new suit, Miles sets out to find Phin and potentially find the reasons why she has turned to the dark side.
It is later revealed that Phin lost her brother to Kreuger’s experiments with the energy converter. To avenge her brother, Phin plans to decimate Roxxon by blowing up the energy converter. However, doing so will also result in catastrophic amounts of damage to nearby city blocks, especially Harlem.
Revelations and misunderstandings
Miles later reveals his identity to Phin, which negatively impacts her, making her skeptical of anything Miles has to say. However, Miles, following advice from his uncle (who is also revealed to be the mercenary Prowler), tries to talk Phin out of her plan and asks her to meet him at their favorite place in Harlem – the Church.
Unfortunately, Miles was set up by his uncle, and both he and Phin are attacked by Rhino, who now sports a Roxxon-modified armor, making him resistant to Miles’ Venom attacks. Roxxon captures both Phin and Miles. Miles is tortured by the Roxxon soldiers, which results in him awakening another one of his latent abilities.
After fleeing the Roxxon compound, Miles reaches the exit bay, where Roxxon soldiers and Rhino ambush him and Phin. While the battle against Rhino was drawn out a bit, the duo does manage to incapacitate the brute. Rhino tries to push Phin mentally by calling her weak and responsible for her brother’s death. This causes Phin to break and attack Rhino with lethal intent.
She is once again stopped by Miles, to which Phin gets even more annoyed and almost beats Spider-Man senseless, leaving him with a warning to never interfere in her pursuits.
The final confrontation
After the incident at Roxxon, Miles once again sets out in hopes of telling Phin the dangers that lie in her plan and the potential loss of innocent lives it can cause. However, before he can reach the Underground, Miles is captured by Prowler, who apologizes to him for getting him captured by Roxxon.
Prowler asks Miles to stay at his safe house and not mess with Roxxon or Underground and that he only intends to protect Miles. However, Miles does not intend to sit around waiting for the Underground and Phin to destroy Harlem. He breaks the enclosure, confronts Prowler, and eventually defeats him.
After the scuffle with the Prowler, Miles goes to Harlem, where Underground and Roxxon have started clashing against one another. After asking Rio and Ganke to help the Harlem citizens evacuate the city, Miles reaches Roxxon Plaza, where he confronts Phin for the last time.
Although Miles defeats the Tinkerer, he is eventually overpowered by her and fails to deactivate the reactor explosion. Phin realizes the fault in her calculations and apologizes to Miles. Seeing the reactor powering up for a bigger and more catastrophic explosion, Miles makes it over to the reactor and absorbs the energy.
Seeing Miles’ willingness to sacrifice himself for the greater good, Phin decides to help him for one last time. She redirects the power her energy suit has to her boots and carries Miles up into the clouds. Phin asks Miles to discharge all the energy he has accumulated from the reactor, which ends up in a massive explosion, seemingly killing Phin, but saving Harlem.
Miles falls back to the ground, and a group of survivors, including the citizens Miles helped throughout the game, Ganke and his mom, come to his rescue. The survivors promise to keep Miles’ identity a secret (an obvious homage to Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man 2) and call Miles their very own, Spider-Man.
A few days later, Peter returns from his vacation, and both the Spider-Men set out on yet another adventure through New York’s concrete jungle. This is where the story of Marvel’s Spider-Man Miles Morales ends and potentially where the story of the upcoming sequel starts.
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