Spider-Man: Miles Morales includes a surprising easter egg for Irish fans in the form of the flag of the United Irishmen. The successor to Insomniac's beloved 2018 superhero brawler was one of the most anticipated next-gen titles when it was announced earlier this year. Now that it has released alongside the PlayStation 5, it's been doing a good job of living up to the hype; it's already proven to be the PS5's most successful launch title, at least in the UK.
The game owes much of its success to the legacy of the wildly successful 2018 title, but the appeal of Miles Morales himself shouldn't be discounted. Miles is a relatively recent addition to the greater Spider-Man canon, but he's already made waves, especially since his recent role as the star of the wildly successful animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. That movie brought Miles front and center by depicting him as the newest person to bear the Spider-Man moniker in an alternate-reality version of New York which is accidentally invaded by several other iterations of the wall-crawler. One of the many things that made Into the Spider-Verse such a great film was its attention to detail; keen-eyed viewers could spot a large list of tiny hidden details which effectively established Miles' version of New York as separate from the one that longtime Spider-Man fans are used to.
It seems like this tradition has extended to the new video game as well. Players have already discovered one tiny but very significant detail that puts the setting of the game apart from the real world in a major way. As reported by TechStomper, the United Nations building in the game does not feature the typical Irish tricolour flag. Instead, it features the green harp flag used by the Society of United Irishmen. This society was founded in the late 18th century with the goal of uniting Ireland and severing the country's link with Britain. The society led a revolution in 1798 which cost thousands of lives and ultimately failed to free Ireland from British rule. This flag's presence at the United Nations building indicates that Insomniac's vision of Miles' world is one in which the rebellion was successful, and the Unified Irishmen hold Ireland to this day.
This is certainly a surprising easter egg for Insomniac to slip into the game. For the most part, after all, the setting of Spider-Man: Miles Morales seems largely similar to the real world, with the obvious exception of the presence of superheroes and other elements associated with greater Marvel canon. The Irish Rebellion of 1798 has never been an especially prominent feature in Marvel comics, so it's odd to see the developers go out of their way to commemorate it this way. This isn't the first example of video games subtly protesting British monarchy; Microsoft Flight Simulator turned Buckingham Palace into a set of apartments earlier this year. That was likely just a mapping software glitch, though. Modeling in the flag of the United Irishmen is much more blatantly intentional.
Whatever the case may be, the alternate Irish flag in Spider-Man: Miles Morales remains a unique and amusing easter egg. It's a nice homage to Into the Spider-Verse, with that movie's more prominent changes from the reality fans are used to. Insomniac's intention with this obscure vexillogical message is still unclear, but it remains a fun surprise for players to stumble upon while they're slinging through New York.
Source: TechStomper