Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales Review

The obvious risk with a smaller game between sequels is that it reads as an offcut, and the answer here is focus. Miles fights differently: venom strikes punch through crowds and change how you open an encounter, camouflage makes stealth a genuine option rather than a stealth section, and the combat has an aggression the first game's Peter never had. Harlem in winter is the other win, a smaller map with more specificity in it, where the side content is neighbourhood scale and the residents recognise you.

The story lands its personal beats about family and responsibility, and Nadji Jeter's performance carries an emotional register the original mostly avoided, though the antagonist's twist is visible from a long way off and the Roxxon plot is boilerplate corporate villainy. It also inherits the original's structural filler, the towers and the collectibles. At around twelve hours it never sags, and the PlayStation 5 version with ray traced reflections in a snowstorm is one of the best looking things of its launch window.