Spider-Man 2's inclusion of Queens marks the first time that the New York borough has been in a Spider-Man game since Ultimate Spider-Man all the way back in 2005.
After nearly two years of staring at the same image of Peter and Miles standing next to each other, Insomniac finally gave us all what we wanted and lifted the lid on Spider-Man 2 last night, showing Kraven, the Lizard, Wraith, wingsuits, new powers, and, of course, the long-awaited reveal of Peter's symbiote suit. There was one important detail that many might have overlooked, however - the return of Queens.
Once Kraven is introduced and the focus moves back to New York City, it's revealed that Queens will be an explorable area in the game. Queens then becomes the focus of the first half of the trailer as we see Symbiote Spidey wrecking a bunch of goons in a surprisingly nice neighborhood area. How Spider-Man is going to swing around Queens is anyone's guess, but we imagine the web wings are going to come in handy there.
It seems that Queens is the go-to inclusion for a Spider-Man sequel, as Ultimate Spider-Man (which in itself was a spiritual successor to Spider-Man 2 and used many of the same mechanics from that game) pulled the same trick back in 2005 by adding the borough as a new explorable area. Interestingly, despite how unique Queens is and how iconic of an area it is for New York City, it's not been in a Spider-Man game since.
This fact was noted by Twitter user Browntable_Ent, who tweeted an image of Queens with the caption, "It's been since Ultimate Spider-Man that Queens was a fully playable location, that's nearly 20 years omg. We really won (Unless it's story-sensitive and not free-roam?)". Insomniac Games later clarified on the PlayStation Blog that Queens is a fully explorable area, noting, "We kick things off at Connors’ home across the East River in Queens, one of the all-new playable and explorable boroughs we’re introducing in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2".
Just in case, like myself, you're not the most geographically knowledgeable and just assume that Queens is a small suburban area of New York City, it's actually quite a big addition to the game. In real life, Queens is absolutely huge and is the largest of the five boroughs in the city, making it a massive get for Spider-Man 2. It's not clear whether that size will translate to Spider-Man 2's map, but we can see from the gameplay footage that it's certainly expanded things quite a bit, especially when it comes to the areas near water.