With the recent news that Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has a planned release window of Fall 2023, many have started speculating on Sony's launch schedule for the coming year—including attempting to pinpoint the precise date the web-slinger's latest adventure will launch. Next year is already set to be jam-packed with big releases, and Sony has a lot of exclusives to bring to the table with games like Horizon Call of the Mountain alongside the PSVR2, Final Fantasy 16 with Square Enix, and—of course—Spider-Man 2. But fans looking for clarity on when exactly it will release should look to God of War Ragnarok for guidance.
As this year's blockbuster sequel to the critically acclaimed 2018 title, God of War Ragnarok acted as Sony's big holiday release, positioned with a launch on November 9 to coincide with the beginning of the holiday shopping season. Sony's other big fall release this year was The Last of Us Part 1—a remake of the 2013 hit with updated visuals and gameplay for the Playstation 5—which was released on September 2. The spacing of these titles across the Fall release window shows Sony's trend for releasing its big titles and helps give fans awaiting the release date of Spider-Man 2 some clue as to when it might launch.
Spider-Man 2 Won't Follow in the Footsteps of The Last of Us Part 1
Fans hoping Spider-Man 2 will launcher earlier in the Fall 2023 release window rather than later may end up disappointed. Although its predecessor launched on September 7, 2018, this was likely due to Sony's desire to avoid having it compete with Red Dead Redemption 2 which launched in late October of that year. Although Marvel's Spider-Man would become a huge success after its release, it was a brand-new series at the time, a time when safer bets are usually made. Once the success of the first game was obvious, Sony felt confident enough to launch Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales alongside the PS5 which demonstrated its view of the franchise as a new pillar in the PlayStation catalog.
The Last of Us Part 1 made perfect sense to release early in the fall because—although it is a well-known IP—its status as a remake meant it didn't have the console-selling capabilities of a game like God of War Ragnarok going into the holidays. With two games in the franchise at this point, Spider-Man 2 is a big enough release that it could drive holiday console sales on its own.
God of War Ragnarok's Release Date Reveals When Spider-Man 2 is Likely to Launch
A far more likely release date for Spider-Man 2 is within the first couple weeks of November 2023. This would follow the pattern of Sony's releases over the past few years that saw God of War Ragnarok released on November 9 in 2022, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Demon Souls released alongside the PS5 on November 12 in 2020, and Death Stranding released on November 8 in 2019.
With this in mind, the most likely release date for Spider-Man 2 is either November 7 or November 14, 2023. Both of those dates are Tuesdays—common days for games to launch on—and are close to the dates previous Playstation titles have been released. It's still too early to know for sure what other games the launch of Spider-Man 2 will have to compete with, but it's a safe bet that it will follow the November release pattern established over the past few years.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is expected to launch in Fall 2023 for Playstation 5.