Spider-Man 2 devs fix the Miles Morales Puerto Rican flag mistake

Either Miles Morales has taken a secret Cuban lover for whom he harbors a sense a national pride for, or the developers of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 made a pretty big mistake in the recent game.

Developer Insomniac Games and publishers Sony Interactive Entertainment released Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to PlayStation 5 on Friday. This time, the story follows both Peter Parker and Miles Morales as they take to New York City once again. By and large, it’s shaping up to be a stunning Spider-Man game that plays with the Marvel canon and showcases the capabilities of the PS5. However, fans noticed an issue with Miles’ apartment over the weekend: His wall was decorated with the Cuban flag, and not the Puerto Rican one representative of Miles’ heritage. Players found multiple instances where the game mistook the Cuban flag for the Puerto Rican one, but you can see one example documented on Reddit below.

Developer Insomniac Games acknowledged the error and released a patch on Oct. 26 that fixed instances where the Cuban flag was incorrectly displayed. “We understand that accurate representation matters, and greatly regret this error. We sincerely apologize and will do better in the future,” a tweet said.

The flags do look similar, and have the same design with a different arrangement of colors. The Cuban flag has a red triangle positioned on the left-hand side with blue stripes. The Puerto Rican one has a blue triangle with red stripes. As a Cuban-American myself, I remember practicing the difference as a child, and still sometimes look them up to make sure I get it right.

Still, as seemingly minor as it is, it’s important to get these details right. Cuba and Puerto Rico are two different places with varied cultural practices and people. To mistake one flag for the other is disrespectful and untrue to Miles’ overall character. Miles Morales is a Brooklyn-born son of a Black father and Puerto Rican mom. He’s a proud Boricua and still speaks Spanish in the household with his mother. His apartment is one important way the developers help teach him about us and who he is.

It’s clear that at least some of the team knows the difference between the two, because Miles has a Boricua costume in this game that depicts the Puerto Rican flag correctly. It’s just a letdown this particular mistake snuck into the release version of the game.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is out to PlayStation 5 now.

Update (Oct. 26): The article was updated to include new information on a Spider-Man 2 patch that fixes the mistake with the flags.