Never-before-seen footage of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 reveals new gameplay mechanic

Sometimes what could've been is as interesting as what we actually got. That's especially true in the gaming world, where every title has tons of cut content left behind. No video game escapes this rule - not even those as big and with as many developers as Marvel's Spider-Man 2. The latest superhero epic from developer Insomniac earned multiple nominations for Game of the Year and quickly became a fan favorite due to its ambitious scope and gameplay variety. However, at one point, it was supposed to have even more mechanics for players to enjoy as evidenced by a new interesting discovery.

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was planned to include double finishers

Few things compare to executing a finisher move on a video game. In the case of Marvel's Spider-Man 2, players fill a focus bar until the iconic "triangle + circle" icon appears above an enemy's head. At that point, no matter how much health they have, you can instantly take them down in one swift and very cool-looking move. We've all taken advantage of this iconic mechanic, but did you know there were plans to make the ability even more powerful?

Modders recently discovered and restored unused code that allows players to perform double finishers in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. While there can be a lot of jittering on occasions, the animations look pretty amazing for an unused mechanic. It may not be anything ground-breaking, but its addition to the game would've definitely added a new layer of depth to the combat. You can see the unused double finishers below:

Unfortunately, this is far from the only thing left out of Marvel's Spider-Man 2. In fact, there's a pretty big list of missing content that includes boss fights with the Life Foundation symbiotes, destructible environments in the open world, a Venomized version of Sandman and Miles Morales, and much more. It's important to keep in mind that it's a common practice for any AAA video game to have cut content. Tight schedules and technical difficulties often prevent developers from fully realizing their original vision. However, it's impossible not to wonder how things would've turned out with six months of extra development.

It's unclear why the double finishers weren't implemented. Perhaps Insomniac decided to spend their resources on a more important aspect such as the implementation of web-wings, or there could've been a lot of complexity when using this feature on different factions of enemies (such as dogs). On the bright side, all these missing features can always be implemented at some point in the future. After all, Marvel's Spider-Man 3 is all but confirmed. And even if players have lost a little bit of hope for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 DLC, there are slight chances something could come our way on The Game Awards.

While it would be easy for Insomniac to confirm that no new content for the wall-crawler's latest title is in the works (and never will be), they instead tend to say something along the lines of "We don't have anything new to announce". I may be overreaching, but perhaps we could see their message as a hint that they are working on it, as unlikely as it may seem. And if it indeed comes our way, wouldn't it be awesome if it featured double finishers?

What do you think of this unused gameplay mechanic? Let us know on our social media pages! And stick around with Whatever A Spider Can for everything Spider-Man-related.