Summary
Peter Parker and Miles Morales face several villains throughout Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. While most of these villains have complete arcs in the game’s campaign or are used to set up future appearances in sequels or potential DLC, there is one villain who appears in the game but doesn’t have a clear story arc ahead.
[Warning: The following article contains spoilers for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.]Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s main story revolves around the Venom symbiote and how it corrupts Peter Parker before bonding with Harry to start a massive alien invasion. However, the other primary threat was Kraven, who traveled to New York to find a worthy opponent for his suicidal “Great Hunt”, turning his attention to the city’s many superpowered and highly skilled beings after growing tired of mortal prey.
Spider-Man 2 Explores Kraven’s Family Dynamics
Kraven’s Family Are At Odds With Each Other
Sergei Kravinoff and his family stem from Volgograd, Russia, and through exploring and clearing out a series of Hunter Bases, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 provides a better look at their family dynamic. Over the years, the Kravenoff family has become fragmented and are at odds with each other. Kraven’s wife, Sasha pleads with him to let go of his “great hunt” obsession and return home to live out his final days with her. It is later revealed that Kraven’s “Great Hunt” is a suicide mission with the intent of dying in combat rather than succumbing to his cancer.
Hunter Base locations are unlocked by completing all the Hunter Blinds in a district.
Kraven’s children, Vladimir and Ana Kravinoff compete with one another for control of the Kravenoff empire, and see their mother as an obstacle to overcome, to which Kraven encourages her to “strike first”, stating that they must “earn their place”. However, Kraven’s other son, Nedrocci Tannengarden states that he doesn’t want to fight and fears the others, which Kraven deems shameful, although it’s clear he doesn’t think as highly of Nedrocci as Kraven removed his name from the family tree in his manor.
Ultimately, this sees the fall of the entire Kravenoff family, as Ana kills the others and calls her father to claim her place at the top of the family hierarchy. Kraven has other plans, however, and Ana is executed before she can leave the country, as indicated by the sound of a gunshot that ends her call to her father.
Chameleon Is Revealed At The End Of A Side Mission
Chameleon is Kraven’s Half Brother
However, one member of Kraven’s family is still alive by the end of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Kraven’s half-brother, Dmitri Smerdyakov is revealed at the end of the “Unidentified Targets” side activities. These activities see either Peter or Miles trying to uncover the identities of several of Kraven’s potential targets by chasing his hunter drones around the city. Upon collecting all the data and coming upon a singular location for the targets, it becomes clear that the identities are all aliases for Dmitri’s alter-ego, The Chameleon.
The reason the drone data appeared corrupted at first and collated multiple targets into one was that the drones captured Chameleon mid-way through one of his mask’s holographic transformations and therefore collected the data of its various stored identities at once. Although it’s clear Kraven had been looking for his half-brother, Dmitri had also been keeping tabs on Kraven’s hunters, refusing to ever be hunted again, and the apartment is rigged to trap the hunters should they come for him.
Spider-Man escapes the booby-trapped penthouse, and a disguised Chameleon watches him from afar while drinking a martini. However, the character is never seen or mentioned again in the story, which would suggest that Insomniac Games is setting him up for a story in a future title in its Marvel Universe.
Chameleon Doesn’t Have A Clear Storyline Going Forward
What Could Chameleon Do In Spider-Man 3?
Despite this setup, there doesn’t seem to be a clear narrative for Chameleon going forward. Kraven finally achieves his goal of dying in combat, with Venom brutally biting his head off after their fight in Times Square. Therefore, Chameleon is free of the hunter threat and is simply roaming the streets of New York somewhere.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 is definitely going to be focused on Norman Osborn’s villainous transformation into the classic Spider-Man foe, Green Goblin as he seeks revenge against the Spider-Men for leaving Harry brain-dead during their final battle with Venom. Otto Octavius is also set to return, having appeared in a post-credit scene and stating that he’s been planning “the final chapter”. The leader of the cult, The Flame was also revealed to be Cletus Kasady, who escaped with a symbiote of his own at the end of those side missions, but Carnage is likely going to appear in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s DLC to tie up the series’ symbiote saga.
With all of these plotlines already established for future Marvel’s Spider-Man content, it’s possible that if Chameleon were to return he would be relegated to some form of side mission again, as there’s no place for him in the main story. This could involve using Spider-Man’s tracker or scanner tools to determine which person in a crowd or in the open world is secretly Dimitri in disguise, or it could be tied to some kind of Mary Jane storyline in which she gets to use her investigative journalism skills outside the main story, similar to the Tombstone ones in Marvel’s Spider-Man.
The other alternative to this would be if someone like Norman Osborn were to hire Chameleon as part of his scheme to destroy the Spider-Men. This could involve posing as their loved ones if Osborn discovers their identities, which he often does in other media before targeting those closest to them, or even as the Spider-Men themselves to disgrace them in the eyes of the public.
One other alternative could be to have Chameleon disguise himself as Norman Osborn so he appears to be in the same room as the Green Goblin to remove any suspicion, much as he did in the Spectacular Spider-Man animated TV series. Considering how much potential there is in the Chameleon character, it would certainly be a shame if Insomniac didn’t do something with him after introducing him to its Marvel Universe in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
Franchise: Spider-Man, Insomniac’s Marvel Universe
Platform(s): PlayStation 5
Released: 2023-10-20
Developer(s): Insomniac Games
Publisher(s): Sony Interactive Entertainment
Genre(s): Adventure, Action
Engine: Insomniac Engine v. 4.0
ESRB: T
Prequel(s): Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Marvel’s Spider-Man
