This piece contains SPOILERS for Spider-Man: No Way Home and Hawkeye, episode 6.
Insomniac Games excels at bringing Marvel superheroes to life. The team distils the essence of what makes a superhero and perfectly translates that power fantasy into reality. They’re not alone, either. With the announcements of Spider-Man 2, Wolverine, Wonder Woman, Gotham Knights and The Suicide Squad it’s now the era of the superhero game.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales established Insomniac’s dedication to disability representation, by introducing the deaf character Hailey Cooper who communicated using ASL to assist Miles Morales on a mission. Hailey was thankfully played by the actor Natasha Ofili who is also deaf.
As a disabled gamer, you rarely feel represented in games, so even an NPC with a disability validates your existence. Even now, disability in games is generally portrayed as negative – especially when wheelchairs are dropped into horror games to be “scary”.