Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 Green Goblin Design Faces One Big Problem

Published Jul 25, 2026, 3:00 PM EDT Jared is a writer, editor, and Communications Studies graduate who loves popular nerd culture (almost anything to do with Marvel, DC, Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings) and the interactive storytelling medium. Jared's first console was the PS1, wherein he fell for Spider-Man, Spyro the Dragon, and Crash Bandicoot. Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 is fighting an uphill battle in plenty of ways, and it’s going to be fascinating to see how Insomniac manages to scale this steep incline. Because of the nature of common storytelling practices, it wouldn’t be outrageous or surprising if the next game is the final entry in what turns out to be a trilogy of Marvel’s Spider-Man games, but it hopefully won’t restrict itself to three titles and a half-sequel in this universe. Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 has the odds stacked against it regarding how it’ll knot certain loose ends that have been teased throughout the series thus far. For example, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Carnage and Chameleon side quests deserve to have meaningful payoffs in Marvel’s Spider-Man 3, and the iconic Spider-Man villain who has long been teased as the main villain of Insomniac’s threequel is already at a disadvantage due to another upcoming Marvel game: the 4v4 tag-team fighting game Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls. Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ Green Goblin Is A Dream Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls revealed Green Goblin as a playable character, joining the all-villains Knights of Doom team, during the June 2026 PlayStation State of Play. Unfortunately for Marvel’s Spider-Man franchise, Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ Green Goblin is arguably the best the character has ever looked beyond John Romita Sr./Jr. and Sal Buscema’s comic book artwork. Marvel’s Green Goblin looks best when his design evokes the classic, traditional look of medieval garb: a shredded cloak or hood, a menacing mask that’s basically a second skin and doesn’t inhibit emotion or expression, a satchel of pumpkin bombs, razor bats, and other miscellaneous Halloween-themed items, a mixture of chain mail, armor, and a tunic, and a glider. This Green Goblin design is genuinely inspired, and any video game that tries to adapt or redesign the character in the future now has its work cut out for it. Of course, with Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 teasing its own original iteration of Green Goblin for nearly eight years, the villain’s brand-new design is inevitably going to be compared to everything that came before it, and beating what Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls has achieved with its highly stylistic art style is going to be tough. Can Marvel’s Spider-Man 3’s Green Goblin Feel Unique? Marvel’s Spider-Man’s narrative has done a wonderful job of gradually developing Norman Osborn’s character between Marvel’s Spider-Man and Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, and Norman simply becoming Green Goblin will be a worthwhile climax. That said, if Marvel’s Spider-Man 3 debuts its Green Goblin design and it turns out to be lackluster, that’ll obviously be disappointing. Marvel’s Spider-Man’s enemy and villain roster (as well as Marvel’s Wolverine’s, no less) are proof that Insomniac favors more ‘realistic,’ armored designs for characters, rather than fully embracing the fantastical or cartoonish elements that have become their signature for a handful of decades. This approach debatably works better for some characters more than others, but essentially foreshadows that Green Goblin might be heavily armored, not unlike how Green Goblin looks in Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002) or Jonathan Hickman and Marco Checchetto’s Ultimate Spider-Man series. To be fair, Insomniac hasn’t only draped its villains in armor, and nothing is inherently wrong with the approach. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Venom is one of the best looks for the character ever, for instance, and the developer’s designs and portrayals of villains like Mister Negative, Doctor Octopus, Kraven, and Tinkerer are genuinely terrific. It all depends on execution. Fans may have their preference as to what sort of Green Goblin design they prefer, but an armored look could be twice as disappointing now with Marvel Tōkon: Fighting Souls’ being so comics-faithful and immediately iconic. To be fair, we don’t know what route Insomniac will go with Green Goblin—he could also be a hulking and fireball-hurling monster like he is in Treyarch’s Ultimate Spider-Man game, after all—and Insomniac still has an enormous amount of time to consider and revise its design before he presumably arrives in Marvel’s Spider-Man 3. Systems Released September 7, 2018 ESRB T For Teen Due To Blood, Drug Reference, Language, Mild Suggestive Themes, Violence Developer(s) Insomniac Games Publisher(s) Sony Engine Insomniac Engine v.4.0 Franchise Marvel's Spider-Man