Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Actor Responds to Fans Upset Over Peter Parker’s New Face: “Get Over It”

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 star Yuri Lowenthal is a bit tired of the discourse surrounding Peter Parker’s face change. Marvel’s Spider-Man wowed fans and critics alike back upon its release in 2018. There had been a steady stream of Spider-Man games before them, but the quality really varied quite a bit. Sometimes you’d get an all-time classic, sometimes it would be a total dud. However, Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man debut was an immediate hit that sold tens of millions of copies, led to the studio being officially acquired by Sony, and even saw their incarnation of Spidey in Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. Success is an understatement for the game and there is a lot of hype behind the upcoming sequel.

However, one criticism Insomniac Games has gotten is for a decision made retroactively to the first game. In 2020, Insomniac Games remastered the first game for the launch of the PS5 and while it looked beautiful and ran well, the biggest change was that Peter Parker’s face was completely changed. Insomniac replaced the facial model for Peter Parker with a new person, citing a better match for Yuri Lowenthal’s facial capture, resulting in better facial animation. Lowenthal does all of the motion capture and voice for Spider-Man, but Insomniac maps it all to a different person’s face. This practice allows them to basically shape the perfect character, combining the likeness of someone else with the actors’ performance. However, the look threw people for a loop as the two Peter Parkers look remarkably different and some had trouble shaking the difference. ComicBook.com got to sit down with Lowenthal ahead of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2‘s release and asked Lowenthal how long it took for him to get used to the change.

“The performance was the same for me. I got over it as soon as they said ‘Hey, we wanna make this change so that the facial animation is better.’ I said ‘I’m all in!’ I don’t care if he looks like a goblin, if my performance is better, than I’m in. I’m kind of tired of talking about it to be honest, because I think everything that needs to be said has been said. Some people will take longer to get over it, some people will never get over it. The one positive thing I take away from this experience is that people connected emotionally so hard and so deeply in the first game that they’re mad when they feel that person changes. I can only be so mad about that because it worked, not the change thing, but you connected with the character which is great. Now, get over it!”

At the very least, this time players will get to experience a new Peter Parker story with the new face from the start. It’s likely having the opportunity to compare and being so emotionally connected to one version of the character likely impacted the way people felt. Had it always been one face, perhaps there wouldn’t be as much of an issue among fans.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 will release on October 20th for PS5.