What happened to Marvel's Spider-Man 2 DLC?

Back on September 7, 2018, Marvel's Spider-Man for PS4 was released for the whole world to experience. Just under two months later, on October 23, players received their first downloadable chapter in the form of The Heist. That episode would be followed by two subsequent expansions, bringing The City That Never Sleeps DLC to an end in December of the same year.

While many expected the game's follow-up to receive the same treatment and see new content released within a month or two after its release, that didn't turn out to be the case. Almost a whole year has gone by and Sony is still tight-lipped about Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and its future. The last update we heard was that Insomniac Games - developers of Spidey's virtual adventures - had nothing new to announce. However, many believed PlayStation was gearing up towards a big reveal in the State of Play presentation on September 24. But lo and behold, that didn't happen either.

We knew Insomniac was working on an expansion of sorts courtesy of an update that mistakenly left the developer mode turned on in the game. With it, players quickly discover a list of missions related to The Beetle, a Marvel villain that wasn't present in the base game. Speculation quickly grew rampant about the existence of a DLC with the newly discovered antagonist taking on the spotlight. However, as days go by, it seems less and less likely that we'll ever get to see it. So what happened behind the scenes?

The infamous Insomniac leak and its horrifying effects

Back in December 2023, Insomniac suffered an unprecedented hack in which thousands of assets, videos, concept art, and even game builds were leaked. More than an estimated 1.3 million files made their way online, some of which unfortunately contained personal information about Insomniac's team. Needless to say, it was a big hit for the video game company which already had its hands full with Marvel's Wolverine, the unintentionally-revealed DLC of Marvel's Spider-Man 2, and an unannounced (but highly likely) Marvel's Spider-Man 3.

While it's hard to know from the outside just how much the leak affected Insomniac's plans and schedules, it's fair to say it presented a big obstacle for the company. Projects that were leaked - such as a multiplayer Spider-Man game - were officially canceled. To make matters worse, the studio was affected by major layoffs across PlayStation Studios - an event that would've inevitably delayed the release of many games as well. Add to that the (necessary) time Insomniac's team took to deal with the ramifications of their personal information being published online, and it's easy to see why we haven't heard anything regarding an unconfirmed DLC.

An inevitable delay in upcoming games

It's safe to assume the leaks inevitably delayed Insomniac's projects. After all, it's worth remembering just nine months have passed since the cyber attack took place. And that's without taking into account the layoffs, which we can assume also impacted the company's deadlines. Take Marvel's Wolverine, as an example. While it's been clarified the game is still coming, it's also been three years since we last got a glimpse of it.

Granted, this may be seen as a normal timeframe in the video game world, as multiple companies reveal a game only for it to go in the dark for multiple years. Elder Scrolls VI was announced back in 2018 and we still don't know anything new about it more than six years later. However, it's Insomniac Games we're talking about here. The American video game developer revealed the existence of Marvel's Spider-Man for PS4 in 2016, and the game hit shelves just two years later. The same happened with its sequel, as there was a two-year gap between its first look and release date.

There were never plans for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 DLC to release within two months of the base game, or it would've happened before the leaks took place. So whatever timeframe was initially established for it had to be pushed back due to all the unfortunate events. That's why we probably haven't heard anything about an expansion in a very long time. However, the bigger question seems to be: will it ever come out at all?

Is the DLC still coming?

Unfortunately, a DLC was never officially confirmed to begin with. For all we know, those leaked Beetle levels could've been meant for a third game in the saga, and Insomniac might have been building them with the same engine and tools used to bring Marvel's Spider-Man 2 to life. However, there might still be a little hope for fans of the wall-crawler around the world.

God of War: Ragnarok, another first-party PlayStation game, was released on November 9, 2022. A DLC for the title was never announced or even rumored, until the tenth edition of The Game Awards took place on December 7, 2023. In it, an expansion titled Valhalla was revealed with a release date of December 12, 2023 - a day that would arrive just five days after the big ceremony.

It took more than a year for the critically acclaimed Norse game to get an expansion, but it ended up happening. Perhaps that could be the case for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 as well, which will be one year old in October. Besides, a new edition of The Game Awards is just around the corner, so Sony could be looking to repeat and make history once again by presenting the big reveal there. After all, there's no need to announce the DLC with months of anticipation. When Insomniac did that for Marvel's Spider-Man for PS4, the response was mostly negative with many arguing it was unnecessary to announce an expansion for a game that hadn't been released.

Lately, we've been seeing more and more big reveals being saved until the very last minute. That was the case for Alan Wake 2's first DLC which was released the next day after its announcement. So there's no need to panic just yet. If The Game Awards come and go and no new content for Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is showcased, then we'll be better assuming nothing is coming our way at all. Until then, let's keep low expectations without ruling out the possibility that something might arrive one day.