Spider-Man 2’s Venom isn’t Eddie Brock — so who is he?

polygon.com:

Venom is one of Spider-Man’s most valuable allies in many Marvel stories, but he always has to play the role of villain first. Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, the sequel to the 2018 web-slinger game and its 2020 spinoff, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, is setting up the classic battle between its Spider-Mans and Venom. But when Insomniac Games creative director Bryan Intihar confirmed that the highly anticipated sequel will come to PlayStation 5 this October, he teased that Venom’s identity in the game may remain a mystery until players discover it for themselves.

This came as a bit of a shock to Marvel’s Spider-Man fans, as the finale of the first game heavily hints at who will take on the symbiote in the sequel. With the very limited amount of information we have, we wanted to gather up all the facts and do some old-fashioned Daily Bugle investigating. Who is Venom in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2? Let’s see if we can figure it out.

During the Summer Game Fest reveal, Intihar told host Geoff Keighley that the most famous Venom — journalist, meathead, and onetime rival to Peter Parker, Eddie Brock — won’t be inside the symbiote this time. This is one of the few things we know for sure about Venom in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2. Keighley asked if one of the Osborns was Venom, but Intihar only confirmed that Brock was out of the running (which we’ll revisit further down).

Who else do we know isn’t Venom? Well, most non-male characters are also probably out. The reveal featured some artwork of Venom — whose suit/skin, much like the Spider-Mans, should look very familiar to comic fans — and the character does look conventionally masculine. We also heard him speak with a masculine voice in a previous trailer for the game. When the Venom