For years, a standalone Venom seemed like an obvious play for Insomniac Games. Spider-Man 2 includes an entire level where he’s playable, and the studio already established its willingness to ship smaller spin-offs in between tentpole Spider-Man sequels. Despite references to the project leaking in hacked Insomniac files back in 2023, a Venom game has yet to materialize. Miles Morales actor Nadji Jeter addressed the confusion around the project in a new interview.
“Let me give y’all an exclusive,” Jeter told content creators Love it Film (via Insider Gaming). “We were going to have a Venom game. We were going to drop a Venom game and a Venom DLC, but we lost Tony Todd…” He continued, “They showed me how it was gonna start– they showed me how everything was going to be. It was gonna be a Venom video game. Y’all played the Venom playthrough? It was just gonna be a Venom video game.”
Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier, however, contradicted Jeter’s version of events in a comment on ResetEra. “This isn’t true,” he wrote regarding the actor’s account of the project’s cancellation. There’s a little confusion as to whether Schreier means that the standalone Venom game is still happening, or whether he specifically meant that the reason for its cancellation is incorrect… although I’d wager it’s the former.
That’s because the Insomniac Games hack in late December 2023 revealed that the studio had been working on the standalone Venom game for quite some time before Todd’s passing. The leak even included one tentative roadmap for the game to release in 2025.
Now, obviously, it’s 2026, and there’s still no new Spider-Man project in sight as Insomniac prepares to ship Marvel’s Wolverine this September. That being said, a leaked presentation, included in the same hack, suggested that a standalone Venom game could be used to “bridge” the gap between Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3. Part of the economic case for the game was that it would allow Insomniac to get out an additional game sooner, before development budgets balloon even further for the next main entry in the series.
It’s hard to imagine Insomniac not taking another stab at Venom at some point, even without Tony Todd’s talents in the driver’s seat. Then again, the studio seemingly has its hands full with plenty of other projects. Based on the previous leaks, those include not just Spider-Man 3 but also a new Ratchet and Clank game and plans for a full-fledged X-Men game.
