This Marvel's Spider-Man 2 boss left Zendaya 'stressing', which is exactly the point

Spider-Man: Brand New Day has finally swung into cinemas, and fans are calling it the best film in the franchise.

It follows Peter Parker struggling with the events of Spider-Man: No Way Home, where his identity is erased, and all of his loved ones forget who he is.

The new film is an emotional journey about him living with his choices whilst facing a new threat that only he can stop, with a little help from Jon Bernthal’s Punisher.

Whilst catching up on some of the press junkets that took place before the film, one interview from IGN stood out in particular. As fans will see when they go to the cinema, Spider-Man: Brand New Day takes a lot of inspiration from the Marvel’s Spider-Man games by Insomniac, and both Tom Holland and Zendaya are quite the fans.

Zendaya spoke about her experience playing Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 and how the Scream boss fight towards the end of the game felt like a nightmare; “She was stressin’ me out.”

After replaying Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 ourselves to get hyped for the film, although the free Brand New Day suit Insomniac added left many gamers wanting more, we can confidently agree that Scream is indeed a hectic boss fight, but she’s actually much more than that.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Scream boss fight deals physical and emotional damage

For those who don’t remember, the Scream boss fight takes place after Harry Osborn (now bonded with Venom) breaks into Peter and MJ’s house.

After getting rammed into a fridge, Peter lies helpless for a few seconds as Venom infects MJ with her own symbiote. The scene has been relentlessly mocked online as the spectacular Spider-Man who can bench press small buildings is temporarily felled by a fridge of all things.

Wipe away the silly meme and this quickly becomes one of the best parts of the game. Scream is fast, agile, and vicious. It pulls out the worst in MJ as she hurls insults at poor Peter Parker, who’s doing his best to save her without hurting her.

Sony Interactive Entertainment

Spider-Man is a resilient hero. He laughs at threats from his rogue gallery and brushes off insults from the Daily Bugle, but in this boss fight he’s well-and-truly helpless; because he knows what MJ is saying is partially the truth.

The Marvel symbiotes don’t make you evil; they draw the evil out of you and put it on full display. When Peter is under its influence it channels his pain, hatred and fatigue of being the hero that always has to save the day, and when MJ is infected it puts her frustration of being in Spider-Man’s shadow on full blast.

Marvel Spider-Man 2’s Scream boss fight isn’t just a battle of strength and wits, it’s a battle of emotional grit, which is many ways is the wall-crawler’s one weakness. He can’t afford to give into his emotions, otherwise his mind may wander from the task at hand, or he could accidentally land one good punch that wasn’t held back.

Zendaya was 100% right; the Scream boss is a stressful one and on harder difficulties it’s damn-near infuriating, but that’s incredibly fitting given the context. The fight is intense because the emotions are intense.

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