7 things you should know before starting Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an excellent sequel to Marvel’s Spider-Man. While Miles’ tale is shorter and less involved than Peter Parker’s, we still learned quite a few lessons. In this Spider-Man: Miles Morales beginner’s guide, we’ve assembled our seven best tips to help with your first few hours of developer Insomniac’s PS4 and PS5 game, out now on Steam.

Note: This guide was originally published in 2020. We’re bumping it up today in light of the game’s release on Steam.

Venom attacks are your best abilities

Image: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment

Miles doesn’t have nearly the repertoire of gadgets that Peter Parker does, nor does he have an ever-charging super ability. Instead, Miles has his own set of tools. The first and most powerful of those are Miles’ Venom attacks (not to be confused with the Symbiote possessing Eddie Brock).

In Spider-Man: Miles Morales, you activate Venom attacks by holding L1 (on PlayStation) and hitting a face button. They’re easy to forget, which means you’ll end up sitting on a bunch of Venom energy. But you don’t want to sit on that Venom energy, because the abilities are extremely useful.

Venom Smash is one of the first you’ll pick up, and it lets you deal a ton of damage and stun all nearby enemies. The Venom Jump ability — which lets you launch all nearby enemies into the air — is incredible for aerial combat and juggling. These are your bread-and-butter Venom skills, and they each have so many use cases.

Combat is significantly harder without using your Venom abilities, so be sure to spend that energy as it comes in.

Do your Spider-Training ASAP for some sweet abilities

Early on in the story, Peter Parker will ask you to attend some holographic training. Once you finish the associated story mission, you’ll unlock more Spider-Training around the map. Make these a priority.

These missions serve as good tutorials for Miles’ skills, but they also unlock exclusive abilities on your first completion — useful tools like Payback, which lets you instantly use a Takedown on an enemy if you Perfect Dodge their ranged attack. To get that, all you need to do is complete the Combat Challenge 2.0 training with an Amazing (bronze) rating.

You can repeat these challenges again for more Activity Tokens — Spider-Man: Miles Morales’ currency for purchasing new Spider suits and upgrades — but don’t spend too much time trying to max out your rank until after you’ve leveled up and gotten some upgrades. That makes getting higher ratings much easier.

Push through the story first

Image: Sony Interactive Entertainment via Polygon

Miles Morales has 15 story missions, and you’ll get a new piece of equipment or unlock a new side activity after most of them. Focus on the story first and wander around the city helping people second. This way, you can really maximize your time by grabbing everything in a district during one trip.

Think about it this way: If you were playing in a real sandbox and needed to go to the store to get new toys, would you want to do a bunch of quick stops at the store or one big one? We’d opt for the latter. Plus the campaign isn’t terribly long, and you’ll come out the other side with a ton of new toys to play with.

Stop crimes at your leisure

If you want to unlock new suits and new gear items in Miles Morales, you’ll need Activity Tokens and Tech Tokens. You get Tech Tokens from certain collectibles and Activity Tokens for completing activities. This includes active crimes that randomly appear on the map. But unlike in Marvel’s Spider-Man, you don’t need to complete all the crimes in a district to finish that area.

Thanks to the FNSM app on Miles’ phone, you can actually select the type of crime scenario you want to play. The game will then direct you toward the crime of your choosing, and you can earn Activity Tokens that way. If you’re in a hurry and see a crime pop up, feel free to move on and catch up with your phone later.

Camouflage is an offensive and defensive tool

Image: Insomniac Games/Sony Interactive Entertainment

During one of the first big missions, you’ll unlock Miles’ second unique tool: camouflage. Camouflage renders Miles invisible, letting you escape or go in for the attack.

This is both an offensive and defensive tool, and it can be hard to get used to if you’re not much of a stealth player. Sure, you can use stealth to cover your butt while you scramble back into the shadows, but it’s also a great tool for a surprise attack.

You can also use camouflage to disrupt the flow of combat. If an enemy with a shield comes in to attack, use your invisibility to disarm them safely before going in for the kill (or bone-shattering knockout, thanks to the Spider-code of no killing). When used properly, you can dance around the battlefield and set up some devastating combos.

When you get camouflage, play around with it in all kinds of scenarios. It’s very flexible, so you’ll eventually find a play style that works for you.

Scan often and everywhere

Miles Morales has some collectible items hidden behind walls or crates — and some random opportunities to get Tech Tokens mid-mission if you’re paying attention. There are also some hidden Spider-Man: Miles Morales Trophies for finding special locations that are easy to miss. You could find all of these things with the naked eye, or you could scan.

Like in Marvel’s Spider-Man, press R3 (on PlayStation) to send out a pulse. This will highlight your missions objective or help you find something you can interact with nearby. It’ll also highlight enemy targets. But you can also use it to find stuff you didn’t know was there, like your dad’s gravestone or a giant memorial statue of Stan Lee.

As you’re exploring around the city, hit that scan button whenever you think about it.

Stealth is a viable option during base attacks

If you played Marvel’s Spider-Man as a stealth player, you were probably annoyed when your super stealthy attempts at base missions inevitably ended in several waves of combat — we certainly were! But Miles Morales works differently.

While you’re attacking a base, you can either go in with full combat or take a stealthy approach. If you alert the guards, they’ll call in some backup, and you’ll have a real battle on your hands. But if you manage to pick off all of the guards before they notice you, the encounter will end without a single reinforcement.

If you played the first game and swore off stealth, try it again in Miles Morales.