An original but unused ending cutscene for Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, released in 2001, was long thought to be lost to time, with only a single screenshot of it remaining online. But that all changed earlier this week when someone who downloaded the original ending over 20 years ago remembered they had it and uploaded it to the internet.
First, a bit of history: Spider-Man: Enter Electro was published by Activision back in 2001 as a sequel to the beloved PS1/N64 Spider-Man game from Neversoft. The 2001 game wasn’t quite as popular as the first game due to the launch of the PS2 and Grand Theft Auto 3. Anyway, Enter Electro was set to launch on September 18, 2001. But after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Activision delayed the game due to its ending, which was set on the Twin Towers. Some changes were made, and Enter Electro finally launched on October 18. The pre-9/11 version of the game became a bit of an alluring mystery for fans, and rumors of a cut ending involving Thor spread online. For a long time, this was just a silly online rumor thought to be fake. Then, in 2023, a screenshot of Thor talking to Spider-Man was found on an old Activision website that let users download the cutscene. But nobody had a copy and so it was thought to be lost media, until September 22 of this year.
On Monday, as spotted by Gamesradar, Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro’s Thor cutscene, rumored to be the game’s original ending, was uploaded to the internet by Instagram user BobbyFan85. Why did they have a copy of this long-sought-after cutscene? Because they are a digital hoarder, apparently.
“Earlier today, I read an article that said this Spider-Man: Enter Electro video was lost media,” posted BobbyFan85. “I knew I had it on one of my old hard drives, and sure enough, I found it! Says I downloaded it on Oct 16, 2001. Glad I never delete anything!”
In the cutscene, which has since been uploaded to the Internet Archive and YouTube, we can indeed see that after Spider-Man defeats Electro on top of the Twin Towers, Thor appears to make a cameo, say hi to Spidey, and then blow up Electro’s powerful and evil device. Here’s the cutscene:
It’s a bit odd, but it’s intended to be a reference to the original Spider-Man game, which ended with the reveal that Captain America got all the credit for saving the day. And in the actual ending of Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro, this same joke is made, but this time it’s Thor who gets the glory. It seems that either this cutscene was intended to expand on the joke or was just a silly extra created by the devs for some promotional reasons, hence why it was once available for download on an old Activision website.
Either way, this mystery is solved. Now, can someone explain why my copy of Spider-Man on the PS1 was marked as supporting “Two Players” but was in fact a single-player-only game? This annoyed my parents, my brother, and me. Thanks for the help!
