’We’re Putting Gasoline on These Children?’: Behind the Wildest NPC Lines in ‘Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’
On a sunny New York street, Spider-Man listens to two nannies. We admit that she is new to this profession and terribly outdated. The other gives some advice: keep the baby alive. Keep it clean. Use petroleum jelly when changing diapers. The first nanny is shocked. “I’m so sorry, are we putting gasoline on these kids? »
NPC chatter is by no means new to gaming, and Insomniac Games Spider-Man 2 East full of phone calls, awkward first dates, talkative mascots, and so much more. It’s a background noise that makes a world feel full and alive when the player moves through it. Two childcare providers chatting in the street is a small moment between two anonymous characters who could easily get lost in favor of Spider-Man’s much more pressing adventures; whether or not a baby gets doused in gasoline is probably out of the hero’s hands, unless it’s a Green Goblin special. In a world without social networks like Tic Tac-where a clip of the nanny chats first went viral– the conversation may never have surfaced for many gamers, and certainly never reached a non-gaming audience either.
In this world, however, the voices behind these anonymous, chatty avatars get their 15 minutes of internet infamy.
Krizia Bajos, who plays the gasoline-obsessed nanny and teaches voice-over lessons, discovered the clip had taken off on TikTok when one of her students brought it to her attention. Another student streamed herself searching for her in-game character on Twitch. Bajos had mostly forgotten about the scene, which she said was recorded at least a year ago. “It’s a testament to Insomniac and their level of detail, their focus on creating an entire world and a deep game that’s not limited to the A-to-B storyline,” she says.
For those wondering, Bajos’ nanny clearly explains the differences between gasoline and Vaseline. The rest of the scene plays out with the nanny giving advice frantically explaining not to use gas or coconut oil on a baby’s diaper area, while Bajos’ character wonders what to apply to her little room.
The scene stands out, unlike other NPC moments, because it feels both hilarious and deranged for a video game and somehow completely organic – dialogue that presumably could have been faked by a content creator with a sense of humor. ‘dark humor. On X, the developers marveled at the scene. “I need someone to [Insomniac] “Message me if this has all been written or if you put improv artists with each other in the booth for these moments,” wrote John Wick Hex developer Mike Bithell. “Either one is impressive.” The latter is doubly so from a pipeline and approvals perspective.
