Censored In The Wake Of 9/11, Legendary PS1 Spider-Man Cutscene Lost For 24 Years Finally Resurfaces Online
I only see “Thank you, Bobbyfan85.” Please paste the article text or key facts so I can craft a punchier teaser without quote marks around titles and names.
The long-rumored Thor cameo from the PS1 game Spider-Man 2: Enter: Electro is real, and it survived in the least glamorous way possible: on a fan's ancient hard drive. It is extremely lost-media-core, but with a Marvel twist.
The game that got rewritten by history
Enter: Electro came out in 2001, published by Activision and developed by Vicarious Visions as a sequel to Neversoft's 2000 Spider-Man game. The first game was a hit and landed on multiple platforms; the sequel was PS1-only and landed with a shrug. It was also launching in the same year a new console generation kicked off, so it was competing for attention with, you know, Halo and Grand Theft Auto 3. Tough break.
What makes Enter: Electro memorable now is not the game itself but the aftermath of September 11. The original final boss was set on top of the World Trade Center. After 9/11, Activision removed references to the towers and overhauled the ending. There is conflicting lore about when the initial version was supposed to hit shelves: some say it briefly released in August and was recalled; others say the planned date was September 18. Either way, the edited version ultimately came out on October 18.
The Thor ending everyone swore existed
For years, fans whispered about an ending cutscene with a Thor cameo that supposedly got cut in the post-9/11 clean-up. Pre-9/11 copies eventually surfaced, but the Thor scene was nowhere in them, which made the whole thing feel like a community game of telephone.
Then, in 2023, sleuths poking around archives of Activision's old website found an image clearly showing the Thor scene and a prompt to download the video. That was solid proof the clip existed, but the actual download wasn't preserved in the archive. Close, but not victory.
Two years later, a hard drive saves the day
Enter a Reddit user who goes by Bobbyfan85. While reading the Lost Media Wiki write-up, they remembered grabbing the file back when Activision offered it. They checked some old drives, and, somehow, this thing was still there — with a timestamp of October 16, 2001.
"I knew I had downloaded it years ago when it was released. So I dug out my old hard drives and found it! It says I downloaded it on October 16, 2001."They posted the video to Instagram under the handle David M. (@bobbyfan85), and a clean, unwatermarked version was preserved on the Internet Archive. Thanks to equal parts luck and obsessive file hoarding, the Thor cutscene is no longer lost.
But… why was it missing from the game at all?
The rediscovery solves one mystery and raises a bunch more. If the Thor ending got cut because of the 9/11 edits, why did Activision still host it on the site for download after the tragedy? If it wasn’t in pre-9/11 builds that leaked, was it pulled earlier for unrelated reasons? Marketing cameo that didn’t work as an ending? We do not have those answers yet, but at least we finally have the footage that started the rumors.
Timeline at a glance
- 2000: Neversoft's Spider-Man releases to strong reviews across multiple platforms.
- 2001: Enter: Electro (PS1) develops a final battle originally set on the World Trade Center.
- Aug/Sep 2001: Conflicting reports say it either shipped briefly in August and was recalled, or was scheduled for a September 18 launch.
- October 16, 2001: The Thor ending video is downloaded from Activision's site by a fan (per file timestamp).
- October 18, 2001: The edited, post-9/11 version of Enter: Electro officially releases.
- 2023: Fans find an image and a download prompt for the Thor clip on an archived Activision webpage, but the file itself is missing.
- Two years later: Reddit user Bobbyfan85 digs the clip off an old drive, posts it to Instagram, and an unwatermarked copy lands on the Internet Archive.
If you want a good Spider-Man time capsule from that era, the 2000 Neversoft game still plays like a champ. Enter: Electro? Not a disaster, just overshadowed — and now forever tied to one of gaming’s strangest lost-and-found stories.