Although Marvel’s Spider-Man ended with the tragic death of someone very close to Peter Parker, according to longtime comic writer Dan Slott, it was almost a different character that bit the dust. Insomniac’s take on the iconic Marvel web-swinger received high praise and record-breaking sales figures when Marvel's Spider-Man launched on the PlayStation 4 in 2018, thanks to its mix of high-flying open-world gameplay and a gripping narrative that spoke to the core elements of Spider-Man as a character.
One of those core elements is the danger that Peter Parker’s double life as a masked crimefighter poses to the people he cares about the most, and Marvel’s Spider-Man was no different in that regard. In the latter half of the game, New York City finds itself besieged by a deadly pandemic thanks to a bio-weapon known as Demon’s Breath - a struggle that becomes very personal to Peter once he discovers that his own beloved Aunt May has contracted the ailment. Spidey eventually obtains the antidote from the newly-minted Doc Ock in the climax of Marvel’s Spider-Man, but he's soon faced with a heart-wrenching dilemma: either use the only dose on Aunt May or allow her to die so that Michael Morbius can synthesize enough to cure the entire city. With a heavy heart, Peter ultimately chooses to save the people of New York, and May calmly tells her nephew how proud she is of the hero he’s become as she passes away.
According to GamesRadar, comic book scribe and Marvel’s Spider-Man story consultant Dan Slott originally pitched for Harry Osborn to die at the game’s conclusion instead of Aunt May. “At first they were very careful with certain characters, so I began pushing very much that to have weight and gravitas of a good Spider-Man story, you need to take the kid gloves off and rough up the character, perhaps even kill one of them,” Slott explained, noting that he pushed heavily for Peter’s longtime best friend Harry to be the sacrificial lamb at the end of Marvel’s Spider-Man. He was then surprised after playing the game himself that Insomniac chose to kill Aunt May instead, but praised Insomniac’s writers for creating “one of the most powerful moments I've ever experienced with a video game.”
Sure enough, Harry Osborn survives the events of Marvel’s Spider-Man by virtue of not appearing in a physical capacity at all, but Insomniac would reveal a much darker plan for him in the post-credits scenes for both that initial title and its 2020 follow-up, Spider-Man: Miles Morales. In these haunting vignettes, it is revealed that Norman Osborn has subjected his son to a twisted experiment in hopes of curing the disease that claimed his mother's life before Marvel’s Spider-Man. This experiment involves apparently bonding Harry to the sinister Venom symbiote, an act that will lead to the monstrous villain appearing in the upcoming Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
This dark scenario wouldn’t have happened if Insomniac took Dan Slott’s suggestion of killing Harry Osborn off instead of Aunt May, who almost wasn’t included in Marvel’s Spider-Man due to elderly characters being more difficult to render. However, Marvel’s Spider-Man concluded with an incredibly gripping emotional climax all the same, and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will see the drama of two best friends turned mortal enemies when it launches on the PS5 sometime in 2023.
Source: GamesRadar