Characters / Spider-Man (Insomniac): Kraven

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Heroes (Peter Parker) | Supporting Cast (Otto Octavius) | Villains (The Sinister Six | Venom | Kraven the Hunter) | Peter's suits | Miles's suits

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Sergei Kravinoff / Kraven the Hunter

"Long have I dreamt of a perfect death, drenched in fire and blood! Will you give it to me?!"

Voiced by: Jim Pirri (English) ^{Other Languages}Hiroshi Iwasaki (Japanese)

Appearances: Spider-Man 2

"Weakness will not claim me! If I am to die soon, I will die ROARING!"

A Russian hunter who travels to New York solely to look for a greater challenge from the city's superhumans and has no regard for the destruction or innocent people who get in his way.

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A-M

• Abusive Parents: Not only does Kraven abandon his entire family to hunt villains in New York rather than spend his remaining moments with them before succumbing to his cancer, but he treats his children's attempts to murder both his wife and each other as something they should be doing if they want to mean anything to him. He dismisses Nedrocci as a weakling for being frightened and asking for his father's protection, and mocks Vladimir's anger at how their birthright is "fighting over scraps" by saying the only "right" of being born is death; when his daughter Ana tells him that she's at last killed everyone else, his response is mild amusement before gunshots ring out.
• Acquired Poison Immunity: Peter can find he's researched Scorpion's venom, and devised a counter using a rare plant. This is showcased later when he No Sells Scorpion's sting before killing him.
• Adaptational Badass: Even in comparison to his comics self, who was nothing to sneeze at and one of Spider-Man's more deadly and personal enemies, this take on Kraven is absolutely brutal, having trained himself to peak human condition and enhanced himself even further with potions, making him a borderline Implacable Man capable of casually shrugging off things that would kill normal humans; to put this into perspective, Peter or Harry having the Venom symbiote on their person makes their fights with him roughly equal. In fact, it's shown that he's not even at his peak strength in the story, due to suffering from late-stage cancer and being on chemotherapy at the time.
• Adaptational Late Appearance: In the comics Kraven appeared in ASM #15 early in Peter's career as Spider-Man, while here Kraven doesn't show up until ten years into Peter's career as Spider-Man.
• Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the comics he was a founding member of the Sinister Six, while here he has no affiliation with the group and even kills off half of the members including Vulture and Electro who were his teammates in the comics.
• Admiring the Abomination: Kraven considers the rampaging Lizard to be a "beautiful creature", and the sight of the symbiote's power, especially at its monstrous peak as Venom, makes him all but salivate.
• Always a Bigger Fish: Invoked. Kraven doesn't just want to hunt a challenging prey, he wants to go one step further, and find somebody who's capable of turning the tables on him and making him the victim in the end, no matter how hard he fights. Nothing less would satisfy Kraven's idealization of the Predator/Prey dynamics of the Hunt, and as he refuses to succumb to a mundane and "ignoble" ending through his terminal illness, he's seeking out super-powered enemies in the hope that one of them will be more ruthless and stronger than him, to give him the death he wants, regardless of what happens to the rest of New York once they have to deal with such a being in the aftermath. He finds what he's looking for in Venom, and sure enough, the Symbiote is powerful enough to casually threaten the entire world with his Assimilation Plot.
• Animal Motifs: Lions.
  • Kraven's fur jacket gives off the appearance of a lion's mane and the skull on his right shoulder appears similar to a lion's.
  • The knife that Kraven uses to nearly fatally stab Peter has the emblem of a lion.
  • Kraven is considered the best hunter in the world, which can be compared to lions being called the kings of the jungle.
• Arch-Enemy: Amusingly, Kraven isn't this for Peter or Miles, but rather to Venom. After he stabs and nearly kills Peter, Venom bonds to Peter to save his life, and increases his aggression towards Kraven in particular, goading Spider-Man to kill the Great White Hunter. After he bonds with Harry again, Venom identifies Kraven as the man who "separated" the two of them, intending to kill him for his actions. With that said, Venom's antagonism towards Kraven is entirely one-sided, as the Hunter has incredible Villain Respect for Venom, and sees fighting against him in battle as A Good Way to Die, even thanking him shortly before he loses his head.
• Arbitrarily Large Bank Account: He's wealthy enough to have an army of goons equipped with advanced technology complete with helicopters and robotic beasts.
• Awesomeness by Analysis: Whilst Kraven will put in the research on his chosen Prey in advance to ensure their hunt is an equal conflict, he's equally capable of picking up unexpected exploits in the environment to use against them. Whilst he doesn't understand why the specific ringing of the church bell causes pain to the bonded Spider-Man, he still realises it's an exploit against his foe and helps push him further into a berserker rage the more he uses it, having the bell transported to his prepared arena to use against Spider-Man once he successfully lures him there.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: While he was the one who facilitated Mac Gargan's jailbreak in the first place, and did what he did for his own self-serving purposes, he still managed to cut the Sinister Six down to half of its original size and reduce Spider-Man's rogues' gallery by four, killing Scorpion, Electro, Shocker and Vulture by the end of the game.
• The Bad Guy Wins: While he's killed by Venom, his entire motivation was to die gloriously in battle against a Worthy Opponent, rather than dying quietly of cancer, so he got exactly what he wanted in the end, and his last words are him thanking Venom for granting his wish.
• Better to Die than Be Killed: A very atypical example, to the point it's practically Inverted. Kraven's already dying of cancer, but since he's too proud to die in such a way, he's looking for an opponent strong enough to kill him, so that he can die what he considers a glorious death. Venom ultimately obliges him.
• Beware the Superman: The simple fact that Kraven having singlehandedly wiped out every, if not all, single member of the Sinister Six and other supervillains is a good reason why Peter and Miles have an oath as heroes to never take a life.
• Big Bad Ensemble: Serves as one of the main antagonists of Spider-Man 2, with him serving as both Spider-Men's mutual enemy in his quest to find a Worthy Opponent. Almost all conflicts in the game short of Harry wearing the Symbiote at Norman's behest are caused by him. At the same time, however...
• Big Bad Wannabe: It's a downplayed example, seeing as Kraven does pose a threat to both Spider-Men with his strength, cunning and determination, but by the time Venom is finally born, it's made clear that the symbiote is by far the biggest threat to Manhattan, perhaps even the world, while Kraven is a mere hunter desiring for a good death before his declining health finishes him off. Indeed, Kraven's goal pretty much spells out that whoever takes him out, in the end, will be a major problem for New York to deal with afterwards, and when they eventually fight, Venom ends up killing Kraven, and his plans for world domination completely overshadows the Hunter's original threat.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: His daughter Anastasia killed her mother and two brothers to prove her worth, intending to kill Kraven next. It's implied he got to her first. That and he and his brother (the Chameleon) have apparently tried to kill each other repeatedly.
• Blood Knight: Kraven is shown ruthlessly pursuing the Lizard and the Spider-Men. He doesn't slow down when countless lives get caught in the crossfire and show no regard to the collateral damage he leaves behind; all he cares about is hunting for sport.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Kraven's obsession with the hunt is such that he views it above any other concepts like good or evil, showcasing an extreme Lack of Empathy towards the morality or deservingness of the lethal outcomes towards his Prey. When MJ tries to plead with him not to hunt a captive Connors, as he's a good man who's tormented by the monster he became by accident and desperately doesn't want to become again, Kraven listens to her, before pulling out a modified vial of Lizard serum and making his opinions clear.
  Kraven: There are no good men. Only good prey.
• Challenge Seeker: Lives for the thrill of the hunt and seeks out the Spider-Men and The Lizard in hopes of finding a worthy adversary.
  Kraven: Light the fires. The Great Hunt begins...
• Climax Boss: Fulfills this the last time he is fought. After spending all of his time escalating the battles with New York's superhuman population, it all comes to a head when his machinations turn Harry and the symbiote into a near Eldritch Abomination Venom that he engages in bloody combat. After the battle the plot takes an even darker turn as Venom becomes a far worse threat than Kraven ever was.
• Create Your Own Villain: Kraven stabbing Peter after their first battle together is what results in Harry's symbiote merging with Peter to save his life, and sets forward a chain of events that eventually culminates in said symbiote becoming Venom.
• Combat Pragmatist: He is a hunter after all. While Kraven does have some honor regarding his "prey" to have a fair chance before engaging them, once he does, everything else is free game. Explosives, flashbangs, cloaking, Mooks, anything in order to make the hunt and his subsequent death a glorious one.
• Contrasting Sequel Antagonist:
  • Mister Negative was a terrorist and gang leader who was out for revenge. He controlled his minions by corrupting them with his flashy superpowers, and before stepping up as a supervillain, he was a philanthropist and Peter Parker's friend, giving his villainy a tragic edge. Kraven, however, is simply a hunter out for good prey, having no personal investment in his targets beyond the hope that they could be the Worthy Opponent who could kill him. His minions are loyal to him, almost fanatically so, by choice, and Kraven's abilities are the Boring, but Practical super-strength and toughness. Finally, Kraven had no connection to the heroes at all before coming to New York; Peter and Miles had never heard of him before, and he's only an enemy going forward.
  • Dr. Octopus/Otto Octavius was a friendly and morally upstanding scientist who only recently became a super villain, where as Kraven has been a brutal mercenary for a long time. Part of Otto's motivation is trying to cure his terminal and/or debilitating illness, whereas Kraven's primary motivation is that he's a Death Seeker looking to be killed by a Worthy Opponent so he can die on his terms before his own terminal illness gets him. Also, while Otto united Spider-Man's Rogues Gallery into the Sinister Six, Kraven targets them as his "prey", even managing to kill a few of them.
• The Corruptor: Kraven has a tendency to push his opponents into holding back less and less until they become a killer like him. It starts with him turning Dr. Connors back into The Lizard so that he can become a more proper beast to hunt, then he tries to push Miles into killing Mr. Negative. Naturally, his efforts turtledove with the natural negative influence of the Symbiote to push Peter into darker and darker extremes in order to take him out. Kraven repeatedly makes it clear that he will not stop escalating his destructive hunts throughout the city nor allow himself to be defeated and arrested like the rest of Spider-Man's Rogues Gallery before him. He will keep going until he's killed and only death will stop him. Between the inability to reason with him, how damaging his warpath is on the people he cares about and Kraven's goading of Peter to stop holding back when fighting him, the symbiote's hold on Peter gets tighter and tighter the more he fights with the Hunter, to Kraven's delight. When facing the full power of the Symbiote unleashed in Venom himself, Kraven shows nothing but joy at finally finding the beast that can hunt him to the bitter end and will go on to do the same to whoever stands in his path.
  Kraven: Yes! YES! You WILL be my final hunt! And I...shall be your first!
• Convenient Enemy Base: Downplayed. It's not discussed in the story, but one of Kraven's main hideouts is located fairly close to Peter's house in Astoria.
• Crazy-Prepared: His approach when it comes to facing off his opponents, especially the super-powered ones. As he's a Fair-Play Villain, he wants them both to be in top fighting shape as well as allowing himself some means of confronting them without getting overwhelmed by their various abilities. For example, with Scorpion, he researched a defense for his hallucinogen that could only be extracted from a rare flower that costs a fortune to obtain. This allows him to No-Sell Scorpion's signature attack and expose him as being cripplingly overspecialized, since Scorpion has no other tricks beyond that. It's highly implied that this is the case for all of this other victims.
• Cruel and Unusual Death: Venom bites off and eats Kraven's head. It's a testament to Kraven's fortitude and desire to be killed by a worthy adversary that he still faces his end with the utmost composure.
• Curb Stomp Cushion: While an absolutely impressive fighter, and he certainly gives his all against Venom despite his late-stage cancer and general declining health from all of his accumulated injuries ailing him, he cannot fight a Nigh-Invulnerable Humanoid Abomination who is fully determined to kill him for everything he's done, something he fully accepts in his final moments.
• Deader than Dead: In the comics, Kraven shot himself in the head but was later resurrected by his family. Here, Venom not only destroys his head (making any resurrection attempt pointless), but (most of) Kraven's family seems to undergo Death by Adaptation.
• Death Seeker: Due to his declining health, he desires to finally find someone worthy of being his predator and finish him off rather than waiting to succumb to his illness. He goes as far as to outright beg an incensed symbiote Spider-Man to stop holding back and kill him when at his mercy. In the end, it's ultimately the monstrous Venom who gives him exactly what he wanted.
  Kraven: Thank you...
• Dented Iron: It's implied that Kraven isn't a young man, and confirmed that he's terminally ill, giving the impression that in his youth, he was even more dangerous than he is in the game, which is saying something.
• Dies Differently in Adaptation: Although he was later brought back to life, in the comics Kraven, at the end of the famous storyline Kraven's Last Hunt, Ate His Gun after impersonating Spider-Man. Here, Venom chomps his head off after a protracted, bloody final fight.
• Disappointed in You: As Kraven's Establishing Character Moment he strangles a potential rival for not being able to track him well enough when he was able to track said rival for hours, thus not qualifying as his Worthy Opponent.
• Disc-One Final Boss: He's the first of the second game's two Big Bads to bite the dust, at the hands of Venom no less.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Some of his lines when facing symbiote-empowered Peter and later Venom are rather...suggestive. While being strangled by Peter, Kraven mutters "harder", and he outright refers to Venom killing him as "[Venom's] first".
• Do Not Go Gentle: He's a firm believer of this, and seeing as he's in New York to find an opponent worthy of killing him, he's made this his life's work.
  "Weakness will not claim me! If I am to die soon, I will die ROARING!"
• Dying Moment of Awesome: Invoked. Kraven is actively trying to seek out a glorious death in combat, which is the reason for his Great Hunt in the first place. He gets his wish in the end, dying in battle with Venom.
• Eaten Alive: Granted, this only happens to his head. The rest of his body dies from the obvious side effects of being decapitated.
• Egomaniac Hunter: For him, the hunt is everything. When one of his mercenaries points out the large number of superhumans in New York City that could be worthy prey, he unhesitatingly accepts the idea and promptly turns the city into his hunting ground. Later in the story, it gets deconstructed. It turns out he's slowly dying due to cancer, and the idea of succumbing to a lingering death infuriates him; his hunts ultimately amount to him just seeking an enemy strong enough to kill him. As both Spider-Man and Venom point out, he's ultimately just a small, vain man, whose ego won't let him die in any other way but violence.
• Empowered Badass Normal: Already an enormous, ruthlessly strong man as it is, but when going through his personal chamber, Peter finds mysterious crimson potions (all but stated to be given to him by Calypso) that he immediately guesses are boosting Kraven's abilities to superhuman levels.
• Establishing Character Moment: Kraven's first appearance has him easily outmatching a hunter pitted against him, expressing bitter disappointment at the man's shortcomings before breaking his neck with one hand, and eagerly anticipating a trip to New York to hunt the city's menagerie of superpowered prey.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Thoroughly averted. While Kraven has a wife and three children, he prioritizes his final hunt over spending time with them before he succumbs to his illness, and he encourages his kids to slaughter each other. He also tried to kill his half-brother Dmitri in an attempt to tie up loose ends.
• Evil Is Bigger: He's an absolute giant of a man and puts his considerable muscle to excellent use.
• Evil Is Hammy: While he's far more subdued in his quieter moments, battles with those he considers his equals or greater than him (such as Peter or Venom) has him gleefully roaring all of his dialogue, living for the thrill of the hunt.
• Evil Virtues: He has enough genuine honor to at least admit to himself that this final hunt has led him to do shameful things, like trying to kill his half-brother Dmitri to tie up loose ends, and voices the belief a few times that he will go to Hell for his actions — but he's convinced that there's no turning back now that his end is approaching. He also turns out to be a Graceful Loser in his last moments, acknowledging that Venom is the superior predator and thanking him for providing a hunter's death.
• Face Death with Dignity: An interesting case, as Kraven will only accept his demise if he believes he's been bested in a manner befitting a hunter, and is otherwise Defiant to the End. Upon being defeated by Venom, with the beast making it clear what's going to come next, Kraven can only genuinely thank Venom for the honor of finally giving him a worthy death at the hands of what he understands is the planet's new apex predator.
• Fair-Play Villain: Kraven wants to hunt his prey on as much a level playing field as possible. To this end, once he chooses a Prey and has them successfully captured, he'll ensure they're rested, trained up in combat to hone any fighting skills they may be rusty with, and put into an environment that will offer them as much benefits as it does him. On the flip side, he also analyses them in advance to locate any weaknesses or advantages he can exploit in the hunt, to allow himself some means of killing even super-powered beings like Scorpion. Case in point, he realises that the Bonded Spider-Man is vulnerable to the ringing of the church bell, but doesn't use that as an exploit until the first half of their fight is over and he's satisfied that his foe is getting closer to killing him in an animalistic rage.
• The Fatalist: When Peter furiously admonishes Kraven for killing so many people in his quest for a worthy opponent, Kraven justifies it by saying that it was simply their fate to die by his hand, as it is his fate to do battle with Spider-Man.
• Foil: To Harry. Both are Secretly Dying from terminal illnesses, but while Harry wants to use the time he has left helping the world, Kraven just wants to spend his last moments in a duel to the death with a Worthy Opponent. They also have a contrasting view on their conditions; Harry is fine dying in the hospital as long as his last few months helped people, while Kraven sees that possibility as a Fate Worse than Death and wishes to be killed before his cancer makes him unable to fight any longer, having devoted his entire life to the hunt. Fittingly, Harry/Venom ends up being the one who finally gives him the death he desired.
• Foreshadowing: Despite Spider-Man's history of defeating powerful villains, Kraven has no interest in either Spider-Men at first and only targets their adversaries for the hunt. This is an early clue that he isn't looking for challenging prey, but a predator that will kill him before his cancer does. It's well known that Spider-Men don't kill.
• Glorious Death: He sees dying from terminal cancer being an unworthy way to go and would rather die the way a lifelong hunter like him should go out: at the claws of a predator he himself couldn't kill. Since he's too good for just any animal to kill him, he goes to New York and starts hunting its superpowered community with the hope that one of them would be up to the challenge: a challenge that Venom eagerly fulfills by biting his head off.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: He has a long scratch running from his forehead to his right eye.
• A Good Way to Die: He arrived in New York City to hunt the local superhero/supervillain population, because he's dying of cancer and wants to killed in combat by a worthy adversary rather than passing away from an illness. He gets his wish when he's savagely beaten and killed by Venom (by having his head bitten off no less), praising his opponent as the superior predator and thanking Venom for granting him a glorious end.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Venom finishing him off happens just outside the camera angle, and while his body can still be seen afterwards, the damage is obscured by the body itself. Even after you switch back to Peter, the mission uses some Railroading to block the player from heading straight to Times Square.
• Graceful Loser: He's totally accepting of his loss against Venom, since it both proves Venom as a superior predator and gives Kraven his warrior's death.
• Greater-Scope Villain: His actions kickstarts the plot of the game, with his Hunters tracking down to capture Flint Marko, who became a paranoid wreck, and went out of his way to find and rescue his daughter. This in turn gets Peter fired from his teaching job, and Marko even warns the Spider-Men about them. His actions however has nothing to do with Venom, since Venom was a third party that was largely uninvolved until he knifes Peter in the stomach. At that point, the symbiote itself has it out for him.
• Handicapped Badass: Peter is stunned to find drugs for late-stage chemotherapy on Kraven's writing desk, realizing that the hulking brute who's had him on the ropes the entire game is also dying of cancer.
  Peter: He's somehow stronger than he looks, if you can believe that.
• The Heavy: Word of God describes Kraven as the "catalyst" for the game's events, stirring up all kinds of trouble for both Peter Parker and Miles Morales. For most of the game, Kraven is the most visible antagonist while the symbiote is a less obvious corrupting influence. It's also Kraven's actions that make Venom a real threat; Harry uses the symbiote's power to help Peter fight Kraven's Hunters, and the mortal blow Kraven lands on Peter is what makes the symbiote bonding to him a necessity, setting off the chain of events that lead to Harry becoming Venom, as well as Kraven's own demise at Venom's hands.
  "...Kraven is our catalyst for everything happening. When he comes to New York City, a lot of things start going wrong. We have Lizard coming out, we have the Symbiote coming out. And as you saw briefly in that trailer, Miles is forced to come face-to-face with Mister Negative, the guy who killed his dad. So there's a lot of drama that's happening in this game."
• Hero Killer: Kraven comes the closest to actually killing Peter of all of his villains, near fatally skewering him with his knife during their big confrontation. If it wasn't for the Venom symbiote bonding to Peter at the last moment as he bled out, Peter would have actually died from his injuries Kraven inflicted on him.
• Hidden Depths: Spidey is surprised to find that Kraven has a strong religious side, praying before hunts and viewing said hunts through a lense of spirituality.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: He's specifically in New York to hunt various superhumans/vigilantes, whether it be the Spider-Men or the Lizard, in an effort to find someone that would finally challenge him.
• Hypocrite: When fighting the black-suited Spider-Man in his arena, Kraven claims that it was the fate of Spidey's rogues gallery to die the way they did. And yet, Kraven's entire goal in the game is to defy his own fate of succumbing to cancer, meaning he has little ground to stand on.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: The Kraven encountered and fought in the game is Kraven weakened by cancer. He'd be even stronger and more deadly if not for that. The trope is somewhat downplayed, as it's made clear Kraven is fighting at his utmost limits regardless, out of fear for his declining edge from the sickness, but it's still notable that his showing isn't all that a healthy Kraven is capable of.
• It's All About Me:
  • His underlying motivation for his Grand Hunt is a deeply selfish one, merely wanting to die in a manner that suits his egotistical vision of himself as a apex predator, and refusing to waste away quietly from cancer. To that end, he endangers countless civilians, forces Conners into becoming the Lizard once more, and causes mass destruction throughout the city whilst on his hunts. Even when fighting enemies willing to kill him, his ego is such that he refuses to die by anything less than an overwhelming enemy who can overcome everything he can dish out, even trying to goad the heroic Peter into killing him to satisfy himself and that's not even getting into how his grand hunt ends up creating Venom.
  • His own family is not exempt from this, as he disregards his wife's pleas to spend his remaining time with them in favour of the death he believe he deserves and expresses contempt at his son begging him for protection from his more violent siblings, making it clear that he expects them to be equally as obsessed with the hunt as he is or they're worth nothing to him. It's telling that Venom, an alien being who causes so much personal damage to Peter partly from its inability to understand humanity, still shows more empathetic care and concern about others than Kraven, to the point of trying to kill him partly because of how Kraven's hunts hurt and endangered Harry's loved ones.
• It's Personal: One of the individuals Kraven targets in his hunt is someone whom he considers a dark stain on his legacy and shameful to even mention. Unlike the other individuals on his list, which he orders his hunters to capture alive, this person he orders to kill on sight. Who is this target? His half-brother, the Chameleon.
• Irony:
  • He augmented his body's strength, durability, and fighting capabilities to superhuman levels, and spent his life hunting the most dangerous living things he could best himself against. However, he's dying of a completely mundane cause, a result of his own body's strength failing no less: cancer. His motivation in the game is to avert a cruelly ironic fate for the world's greatest hunter, by throwing himself into death battles with superhuman opponents.
  • He is adamant that "only an equal may taste my last breath" in a fight, constantly pushing opponents to do better against him and prove themselves his Worthy Opponent. However, when he finds this enemy in Venom, it's made clear the feeling is not mutual. Venom is absolutely beyond Kraven in a fight, such that his best efforts are a mere Curb Stomp Cushion, and thrashes him with ease, and the symbiote itself holds him in nothing but contempt for the damage he inflicted on Harry and Peter's personal lives in his mad quest for a Glorious Death, making a point to brutally bite his head off, which Venom only tries against enemies he's absolutely pissed at. Instead, the ultimate predator Kraven holds such reverence towards considers Peter, whom Kraven judged to be unworthy, its true equal and repeatedly attempts to re-bond with him after their separation.
• The Juggernaut: Kraven already looks intimidating by the standards of a normal human, but in a fight, he demonstrates that's he's much stronger and faster than he appears, making Fisk's own showing in the prior game look like a child's tantrum in comparison. He regularly tanks damage in cutscenes without flinching, can withstand being knocked backwards into sharpened tree logs with minor wounds, and overpowers super villains armed with advanced technology or superpowers with just his brute strength. It says a lot that Kraven easily overpowers both Miles and Peter in a normal fight, and the only means of damaging him even remotely comes from individuals bonded to the Symbiote — and even then, it merely turns the fight with Kraven into a multi-stage protracted beatdown as Kraven fights back equally as hard. The ultimate demonstration comes from him managing to fight Venom, with all the powers of the symbiote fully unleashed, twice and make the monster earn the kill.
• Knight of Cerebus: From the moment he kills Scorpion, the plot takes a turn for the darker and typically only gets bleaker each time he makes an appearance.
• Miles to Go Before I Sleep: He's Secretly Dying, and insists that he will "not die in a sick bed" when his time comes. Instead, Kraven seeks a Worthy Opponent to die in battle. Venom ultimately gives Kraven what he wants, beating Kraven down until he can no longer fight back, then ripping into Kraven's neck with his fangs, killing him.
• Lack of Empathy: The only thing that matters to Kraven is the Hunt. Nothing else even fully registers to him, not whether his chosen Prey are good or evil, not whether innocent civilians will be needlessly hurt in his self-glorifying battles spilling out into the streets, not even his own family getting turned into Prey, as side missions reveal that Kraven killed his own daughter when she tried to hunt him as proof she was a worthy Superior Successor to him, and failed. The inability to reason with Kraven at all helps push Peter into darker and darker mindsets, as the symbiote takes further hold of him, since the Hunter makes it clear he won't stop his hunts until he's satisfied by a worthy death, no matter what gets sacrificed along the way. It says a lot that Venom, a twisted alien abomination with a Yandere mindset towards Peter, still showcases a deeper empathic ability and willingness to reason than Kraven, being rejected because of its incompatible toxic nature and destructive plans than any refusal to compromise.
• Mother Russia Makes You Strong: Rivals even the Rhino in this. The Kravinoffs were an exceptionally proud lineage who felt the hunt was their duty, and Kraven describes them preparing for it not by drinking and feasting, but in a Russian Orthodox church service with prayer and paska communion.
• Mythology Gag:
  • His killing several prominent villains from a previous game offscreen draws reference to the tie-in game for The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which had him do the same with most of the unique cross-species.
  • Like in Kraven's Last Hunt, Kraven ultimately dies from damage to the head. In fact, his entire arc borrows from that story and a few of its followups like Grim Hunt, as Kraven is once again Secretly Dying but wants to go out in a blaze of glory.

N-Y

• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Downplayed, as Kraven does not exactly 'fix' much of anything during the whole game, being one of the main driving forces of the plot and causing all sorts of death, destruction, and carnage across New York all to satisfy his urge to find a worthy opponent, without caring anything about who or what gets caught in the way. That being said, his killing of multiple members of the Sinister Six actually is ironically beneficial to both Spider-Man and the city as a whole since said hunt victims were among the most dangerous and evil people in the whole city, and had no doubt caused all sorts of death and destruction in the past, repeatably breaking free from prison only to wreak havoc on the city time and time again before finally being killed. A few less super villains running around will no doubt make New York a bit safer, albeit there is not exactly a shortage of supervillains present in the setting regardless.
  • A more specific example happens during his own boss fight. During the second phase of his fight, Kraven brings out a large bell that he rings so he can weaken the Symbiote and bring out its murderous side so he can die at its hands. However, once Miles manages to break out of his captivity, he's able to use said bell to weaken the Symbiote's hold over Peter, and give him the willpower to tear the Symbiote off himself.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis:
  • Played With. Kraven has several of his chosen targets contained in cages or otherwise beaten up when captured by his hunters, but he actually goes out of his way to make sure they're rested, have regular fights against his Hunters to regain any skills they've had going rusty, and are placed in combat arenas that offer them some environmental advantages before going on the hunt for them, in essence, doing whatever he can to make sure the fight between him and them alone is as fair as possible. He likewise also doesn't target unrelated civilians such as MJ, though he also doesn't care for their lives being risked as collateral either. However, this is as far as he'll extend mercy. Once on the hunt, if Kraven has a killing shot lined up, he will take it, and he will put his prey down without letting them have another chance. He kills Shocker, Vulture, Electro, and Scorpion, and the narrative presents him as potentially posing a threat to Sandman himself, all whilst technically with just the abilities of an enhanced human, because he's just that good and ruthless with his skills.
  • His no-nonsense qualities are best showcased when he goes up against a target he's not focused on hunting but has the skills to potentially interfere with his current hunt. Due to his well-known no-killing rule, Kraven isn't interested in hunting Spider-Man in favor of his more immoral enemies at first. However, when the Experienced Protagonist tries to get between him and a transforming Connors to protect the innocent man from Kraven, he casually catches his punch and swiftly impales Peter in the gut in the same movement, so swiftly that it takes a moment for everybody to realize what happened. He breaks off the blade to keep the injury wide and it actually leads to Peter swiftly bleeding out, with only the Emergency Transformation of the Symbiote bonding to him saving him. There was no warning, no Evil Gloating, no acknowledgement of Spider-Man as a foe, just a lethal counterattack and tossing him aside to focus on his prey. It's telling that Peter has a chance afterwards only because Kraven takes an interest in the bestial ferocity the symbiote awakens in Peter, and intentionally holds back in further confrontations until he can figure out how to push the heroic Spider-man to his breaking point.
• No-Sell: Scorpion's venom does nothing to Kraven. If anything, he's just disappointed that that was the best Gargan could do. He later likewise catches MJ's modified stungun by the hand and merely endures the current before casually backhanding her away. Kraven seems to have a habit of tanking blows from others to judge whether or not they'd actually have an effect on him in a hunt, or an intimidation tactic.
• Offing the Offspring: In one of the side missions, it's revealed that Kraven's daughter Anastasia killed her brothers and mother, and then vowed to kill Kraven to become the only Hunter, but Kraven presumably struck preemptively by sending assassins after her.
• Off with His Head!: Venom kills Kraven by biting off his head.
• One Degree of Separation: As in the original comics, Kraven is revealed to be the estranged half-brother of the Chameleon, whom Peter has already gone up against multiple times.
• Panthera Awesome: Kraven has a pet tiger named Dima to serve as his "bodyguard". Spider-Man has to feed it drugged meat to avoid getting mauled.
• Punch Catch: When pulling an Unflinching Walk towards the transforming Connors, Peter attempts to stand on his way, punching aside some of his Hunters aiding him before flinging a blow at Kraven's face that the Hunter swiftly stops cold in the blink of an eye. It takes Peter a second to realize in the chaos that he used the same moment to impale him with a machete in the gut, showcasing Kraven's ruthless pragmatism whilst on the hunt, as well as highlighting just how dangerous he is despite his lack of fantastical powers.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Kraven's primary prey in New York are supervillains, many of whom participated in the Devil's Breath incident. Downplayed with Shocker and Black Cat, as they're both simply thieves whom Kraven thinks could put up a good fight.
• Rage Against the Heavens: While battling Spider-Man, Kraven declares he will not die as God intended him to of terminal illness and instead die in battle.
• Recurring Boss: He's fought twice in the game. The first as Peter, the second as Venom.
• Religious Bruiser: He is deeply spiritual and follows an eclectic religion based around his warrior code, praying before hunts and viewing competition as important to help people improve.
• Sadist: Conversation between Hunters reveal Kraven once hunted a man who'd left his organization, capturing him and keeping him alive for weeks, cutting a part of him off every day, till there was nothing left.
• Sibling Yin-Yang: Kraven and his half-brother the Chameleon have opposite approaches to fighting; Kraven is a warrior who battles his opponents directly, while the Chameleon relies on deception and keeps his true identity hidden.
• The Social Darwinist: Kraven has lived his life under the old saying "survival of the fittest" and thinks that applies to everything. He takes to hunting people when animals won't cut it and starts hunting superhumans in densely populated New York City when that wouldn't cut it. He even applies this philosophy to being a husband and father, leaving his wife and sons to be murdered by his daughter (who intends on going after him next) because he believed that none of them deserved anything unless they earn it by culling the weak, and even then its implied that he had her killed for this same reason.
• Stealthy Colossus: He towers over almost everybody, and part of his Establishing Character Moment is disappointedly berating the Hunter trying to kill him that he'd been following the man closely enough to be in his shadow for over 5 hours without him noticing. He often unexpectedly appears out of nowhere in scenes to ambush characters with his presence or his weapons, and when briefly facing off with Peter in the church, he's able to ambush him from the darkness of the rafters several times swiftly enough that the Spider-Sense doesn't react, highlighting how far he can erase his presence.
• Strike Me Down with All of Your Hatred!: Kraven repeatedly goads a black-suited Spider-Man to kill him for torturing Miles. He does the same thing with Venom. Unlike with Spidey, he succeeds in getting his glorious death by Venom's hand.
• Too Kinky to Torture: While it doesn't show often, Kraven demonstrates shades of this, from allowing Mary Jane to electrocute him a little before breaking her stun gun to enjoying when Symbiote Spider-Man is attempting to strangle him to death.

  Kraven: Harder.

• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Kraven fatally stabbing Peter in the side is what leads to the symbiote bonding to Spider-Man, which starts a chain of events that leads to Venom's near-apocalyptic rampage. By his account, he's aware that his end goal will be leaving behind a stronger and more dangerous killer than him, but he's so obsessed with his own glory and envisions a worthy ending to that, that he doesn't give a damm. His wording during the final fight with Venom implies he expects the monster to go on to terrorize the city afterward on further hunts, but he clearly wasn't expecting how far-reaching Venom's ultimate plans would be.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Averted. After Kraven fatally wounds Peter, Harry, an Unskilled, but Strong Empowered Badass Normal, gives the hunter an absolutely brutal Curb-Stomp Battle. By the time Kraven properly faces Peter, who not only knows how to fight, but has actual super strength and a power boost from the symbiote, Kraven manages to put on a proper fight.
• Villain Killer: In his efforts to find a Worthy Opponent, he kills a good chunk of Spider-Man's Rogues Gallery: Shocker, Vulture, Electro, and Scorpion.
• Villainous Valor: For as evil as he is, Kraven actively seeks out danger and remains unafraid even of opponents who could quite possibly kill him. Part of this is because he wants to die in battle against an opponent who is his superior in every way, but it's implied Kraven was never afraid of death in the first place.
• Worf Had the Flu:
  • Justified and subverted. By the time he goes up against Venom, Kraven, in addition to his cancer, is already weakened from his fight against the Symbiote Suit Peter, which plays a role in his subsequent defeat (something he does acknowledge but doesn't care about due to getting the hunt and death he wanted). However, it's made perfectly clear that even if he was in tip-top shape, along with not being riddled with cancer and in his prime, Kraven would still lose to Venom given the latter being a Nigh-Invulnerable Humanoid Abomination, even if it took much longer and more effort on Venom's part to do so.
  • As a whole, Kraven is this. By the time he makes his debut in the game, he's already in late-stage cancer and probably past his prime. Yet, he's The Juggernaut capable of giving the heroes an immensely hard time to the point where he not only very nearly kills Peter after stabbing the latter in the gut, but the only ones who are capable of defeating him are symbiote-enhanced individuals. One shudder to imagine the heroes going up against a younger and healthier Kraven.
• The Worf Effect: On both sides of the trope. He kills four major villains from the first game, Shocker, Vulture, Electro, and Scorpion, with apparent ease, and almost succeeds in killing Peter (only failing due to the symbiote merging with Peter, which heals his wounds). However, he actually gets stunned and knocked out briefly when he pushes Harry into an Unstoppable Rage when he mortally wounds Peter, showcasing how the brute force of the symbiote is more than he can manage. In his climatic encounter with the fully-unleashed power of Venom, he's brutalized and killed off rather easily to establish the alien as a far greater threat.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • Kraven claims that he's spent his entire life looking for one, with the game opening with his decision to move his hunt to New York after easily killing another hunter who claimed to be his equal, hoping their fantastical abilities will prove his match. He is generally unsatisfied time after time as he systematically cuts through several of new York's super villains (though he did admire Shocker's tenacity).
  • He zigzags this attitude towards Spider-Man thanks to his well-known Thou Shalll Not Kill policy, not including him at the top of his hitlist despite Peter having repeatedly beaten several of the foes he disposes of multiple times, and even expresses minor contempt towards him after he easily lands a mortal blow on him. However, once he sees how dangerous and brutal the bonded symbiote makes Spider-Man, he changes his opinion, showing interest and eventual delight in the anamalistic fury lurking beneath Peter's Heroic Willpower, and constantly coaxing him to stop holding back. By the time they fight, he's fully accepting of the black-suited Spider-Man as being worthy of his death, becoming openly upset when Miles interferes with the killing stoke and immediatly hunting Peter down once he recovers to resume their deathmatch.
  Kraven: I see a man, but I sense...a beast.
  • When he sees the full power of the Symbiote unleashed in Venom, he realises it was the predator he was looking for all along, showing nothing but abject delight in how brutal and unstoppable the symbiote was, and feeling nothing but gratitude towards it for finally granting him the death he wanted.
• Your Days Are Numbered: He's dying of cancer and doesn't have long before he'll be too weak to go hunting any longer. So he's rushing to get a far more glorious death before that can happen, by tearing through New York City's superhuman population until eventually one of them kills him in battle.

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Thank you...