How to fix the Coney Island stuck on bench glitch in Spider-Man 2

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is a pretty polished, smooth-running game as a whole, but no game is ever completely free of bugs and glitches. One of the most common glitches in Spider-Man 2 sees Peter Parker sitting on a bench in Coney Island, then not being able to get up.

The bug happens during the A Second Chance Main Story mission, which takes place entirely in the Coney Island amusement park in southeast Downtown Brooklyn. Playing as Peter Parker, you’re free to roam the park for a while, and that includes stopping for a sit down on one of the many benches. However, some players are reporting being unable to get up again after sitting down. Fortunately, though, there is a simple fix.

What to do if you’re stuck on a Coney Island bench in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

First of all, I have to say that I did not experience this glitch, no matter how hard I tried to make it happen. Whenever I sat on a bench, MJ sat down next to me and, whether or not I talked to her, I could always press Circle to get up off the bench. And if I did talk to her, that deactivated all the benches, so I couldn’t sit down again.

But from watching videos of the glitch occurring, my best guess is that the glitch only happens after you’ve played enough of the park attractions to win prizes. That’s my guess because I have not won the prizes, and because in one of the glitch videos I’ve seen Peter is wearing the silly hat that you win as one of the prizes. He’s also alone and not tailed by MJ and Harry, which seems to be the cause of the glitch. It’s like the game is expecting MJ to be there, and when she’s not, the code hits a dead end.

Anyway, I promised a simple fix and here it is. When you make a manual save in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 this does not create a state save, which is to say that the save file is not a snapshot of exactly where you were when you made the save. Instead, when you load the save, you’ll be returned to your most recent checkpoint. This means that if you’re stuck on a bench, all you have to do is create a manual save, then quit and load that save. When the game loads, you’ll no longer be stuck on the bench.