Spider-Man 2 Side Quest Gets Nominated For An Award

One of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s side quests was recently nominated for Best Representation at this year’s GAconf Awards. Like Insomniac’s previous two Marvel’s Spider-Man games, Spider-Man 2 gives players plenty of side activities to perform as either Peter Parker or Miles Morales in between main story missions, such as tracking down members of a sinister arson cult or destroying Symbiote monster nests. While many of these side missions are centered around combat, others are instead based around the people that both Spider-Men have met while protecting New York City from supervillains and other evil-doers.

One such supporting character is Hailey Cooper, a street artist who is deaf and who first appears in Spider-Man: Miles Morales. There, she meets the titular wall-crawler during one of his crime-fighting escapades, and the two teens eventually become friends to the point that Miles entrusts her with his secret identity. Hailey returns in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, where she becomes a romantic interest for Miles and even has her own designated side mission. During “Graffiti Trouble,” players control Hailey as she meets another street artist – and Insomniac simulates what Hailey’s life is like as a deaf person by muting most of the in-game audio.

Spider-Man 2’s “Graffiti Trouble” has been praised for its accurate representation of Hailey’s deafness, and now it has been nominated for Best Representation at the upcoming GAconf Awards 2023. According to the official GAconf Awards website, Spider-Man 2 is being recognized for having “a playable Deaf character, with ASL interpreting and simulated hearing loss,” and will compete with Moving Out 2 (which allows players to fit their avatars with wheelchairs), and Hi-Fi Rush (for positive representation of prosthetics that is integrated with the in-game narrative).

The GAconf Awards are held every year and honor accessibility and representation efforts within the gaming industry. Spider-Man 2 has been noted for its accessibility features, which allow players of all kinds to adjust gameplay and audio settings to suit their specific playstyle or needs. However, the aforementioned “Best Representation” nomination is the game’s sole GAconf nod, though its fellow PS5 exclusive Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is being recognized for Best Mental Health Accessibility due to its thalassophobia setting. The PS5 console itself is likewise being nominated for Hardware Accessibility thanks to a September firmware update that added menu haptics and allowed players to split controls across two controllers.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has been praised across the board for its improved gameplay and gripping plot, but for many players Hailey’s less-bombastic side quest is one of the most profound moments in Insomniac’s latest superhero action title. The way the “Graffiti Trouble” mission conveys Hailey’s lack of hearing as she investigates mysterious street art and puts up some of her own has now garnered recognition from the GAconf Awards, with voting taking place all week long and the final results to be announced in January.