It’s hard to believe four years have passed since Insomniac Games brought Marvel’s Spider-Man and pulled the rug from under PS4 players. The studio’s latest PC port is just the latest evolution from one game’s journey. Insomniac looked at a long line of Spidey games before reinventing the hero for modern consoles. This came with a Herculean effort of gamifying everyone’s favourite wall-crawler. But not without checking every box for a definitive open world action-adventure free from franchise baggage.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered for PC is an unexpected surprise. The latest release doesn’t exactly spin a new web. It’s still the same game new and veteran players can love. But gamers will be happy to hear that Insomniac’s jump to PC works with some well-thought-out optimizations and features. Nixxes Software—freshly acquired by PlayStation—also leaps in with their expertise. The result comes from nothing short of a journey that never feels old with newer hardware. Players can also get a piece of the Remastered cake and so much more over PC.
I was worried about how a tailored experience like Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered would change to fit all kinds of PC rigs, but it’s also easy to overlook the game’s PS4 roots. Essentially any PC that matches the 2013-released console can run Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. This comes as great news for anyone who hasn’t yet played Insomniac’s open world masterpiece. Minimum requirements of a fourth gen i3 and GTX 950 make this highly accessible. Here, Nixxes Software turns on their charm for keeping performance high around a living and breathing New York City.
As reviewed by Cole Watson in 2018, there really isn’t a need to reiterate what makes Marvel’s Spider-Man unique. Players can still ignore fast travel as they swing for the sheer fun of it. Combat blends well with Insomniac’s knack for gadgetry, and things which feel on brand with Spidey. Its HBO-style narrative, as mentioned by Mr. Negative actor Stephen Oyoung, still draws players deeper into Peter Parker’s spiralling world. That single player driven campaign holds up pretty well into 2022 with plenty of entertaining moments. More importantly, grounded dialogue that surprises with wit from beloved characters. PC players like myself who still haven’t played the story DLC finally can all these years later. All of this comes together for everyone’s new favourite Spider-Man game.
“Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered elevates the PS5’s goodies, but extensive settings give players the smoothest experience possible.”
The PC version gets the definitive version of Marvel’s Spider-Man yet. Simply, it’s the PS5 version which packs high-fidelity visuals, frame rate boosts and ray tracing. Players also get every piece of content, from suits to the The City That Never Sleeps DLC. I’m especially jealous of players who get to unpack all of this for the first time. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered elevates the PS5’s goodies, but extensive settings give players the smoothest experience possible.
Much of the PC perks start with a double-click. Insomniac and Nixxes don’t shortchange players with highly customizable graphics. I’ll admit it’s not impressive to see Textures, Shadows, Depth of Field and Ambient Occlusion in the mix. These settings come standard out of a modern PC game. Players will get immense joy in tweaking the aforementioned settings. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered looks even more lifelike than its PS5 counterpart with the right specs. While players can make smart choices like adjusting shadows to boost frames and preserve Spidey’s fibrous suits.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered luckily sticks the superhero landing for performance right out of the gate. Even without the Day One patch, the game runs smoothly thanks to extra hardware padding. It’s expected out of a foundation laid in 2018. Other nifty features like Bloom, Vignette, and Chromatic Aberration can also be tweaked. The PS5 locked down visuals and frame rates. But the PC version takes these barriers away to let players run Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered at its full potential. Technically, it’s a double remaster.
“Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered looks even more lifelike than its PS5 counterpart with the right specs.”
The PC benchmarks showed some promise without that Day One patch. I first tested things over an i5-12600K and 3080Ti combo. Save for a few audio glitches and slower-loading skyscrapers, everything seems to be in order most of the time. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered was able to run on Max settings. Without Ray-Tracing (RTX), the game manages fine above 60 frames. In fact, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered comes a long way from its consoles by staying smooth. Outdoor sections like free-roaming, combat and story cutscenes averaged 90 fps. Buildings, pedestrians and trees don’t really have to keep up with anywhere Spidey goes.
The PC version’s extra horsepower means New York City is readily booming with life. All without straining hardware as it did on consoles. Speaking of readily, the PC port also impresses with load times under five seconds, but this depends on the kind of build players have, while it’s entirely possible to match the PS5’s instant loading.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered doesn’t come without snazzier features on PC. The port goes a step above the PS5 remaster with ray tracing. Three options (Medium, High and Very High) enhance Insomniac’s world without blowing up rigs, though the RTX still delivers a gut punch to frames. Developers also caution against using the Very High setting unless players have a beefy GPU and VRAM to do so. My 3080 Ti with 12 GB of video memory put up a fight at the highest RTX settings.
“Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered makes cutscenes harder to skip thanks to those high fidelity graphics.”
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered looks absolutely stunning under those natural lights, shadows and reflections. New York City feels especially lifelike as players see Spidey mirrored by the buildings he swings through. The most generic NPCs look convincingly unique with ray tracing on every fabric (and soulless complexion), but these elevated visuals come at the cost of frequent performance dips below 60fps. As Spidey swings around, demanding RTX immediately starts to chop things up a bit.
I still couldn’t get over the PC version’s ability to add new levels of detail. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered makes cutscenes harder to skip thanks to those high fidelity graphics. Aunt May’s sweater looks convincingly real with fuzzy textures. Parker’s hair showcases artificial strands under the soft bounce of ceiling lights. Underground and nighttime levels feel moodier with deep shadows. Moonlight also shines through windows to really illuminate the scummy parts of town. I’ll spare you more details over how glass and puddles look with RTX in Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. You’ll simply want to keep ray tracing on and ignore the frames.
Nvidia GPUs will have more ways to boost frames under Max settings. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered loves its DLSS (deep learning super sampling). The feature tones down graphics in real time, but uses AI to boost performance and sharpen out those rough edges. I couldn’t really notice the difference, which says plenty of PC optimization in Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. I highly recommend players to see how far they can push their graphics before levelling frames out with DLSS. This is also a luxury PC players have exclusively from the console versions.
“Luckily, PC gamers can play Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered with anything they want. I hit the ground running with my favourite Xbox Elite 2 controller out of comfort and flexibility.”
Insomniac couldn’t quite use its second re-release to improve the actual gameplay. Luckily, PC gamers can play Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered with anything they want. I hit the ground running with my favourite Xbox Elite 2 controller out of comfort and flexibility. Those added back bumpers also let me perform a few trickier combos a lot easier. The PC port does wonders with recognizing just about any accessible input device. Combined with extensive gameplay modifiers, this levels the playing field for all kinds of players. Insomniac and Nixxes made a good effort in extending optimizations over to the hardware end of things. Players can also change up their controls for a better time. I was also surprised and unsurprised to see DualSense compatibility, haptic feedback and all.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered does take some steps back along its own PC master race. The game was built with a controller at first. Personally, I couldn’t last ten minutes navigating Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered over mouse and keyboard. Insomniac and Nixxes pre-mapped everything to try fitting all of Spidey’s functions on the keyboard, but it can be overwhelming to use under ever-changing situations.
Swinging and traversal come without a hitch once players find their preferred setup. Spidey’s button-mashing combat is much more complicated over the keyboard. While players have to essentially relearn a few controls for every key binding. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered rightly simplifies everything over the limited gamepad. But I can’t help but think that controls aren’t as streamlined as they should be over the mouse and keyboard. More importantly, this is just a subjective nitpick. I won’t dock marks if players actually do have better gameplay with mouse and keyboard.
“Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered marks another successful PlayStation port for PC. It’s high time console and computer players had a game to talk about together.”
Insomniac and Nixxes, for some god-awful reason, missed a chance to add some of Miles Morales’ improvements to Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered. The shorter sequel packs more fluid animations for swinging and combat. An ability to replay missions was also included. None of these quality of life improvements are here in Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, so it’s harder to relive a favourite moment without playing through the entire game again.
In a high quality AAA release, developers also commit some PC sacrilege without bundling benchmark tools. PC players won’t get a read on their stats or chances to test their rigs before swinging, though I do hope Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered opens the door for mod support and Steam Workshop tools.
Speaking of Steam, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered is an absolute treat to have there. Cloud saves are supported for a seamless transition across gaming devices. I’m only hoping Steam Deck players can take this gem on the go. While it would be a dream to see Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on handheld, as far as portability goes, the game is highly compatible with laptops. I extended my review playthrough over MSI’s GE76 with some 4K results. Insomniac and Nixxes have a few patches to go before Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered runs like butter over most laptops, but this is a game that’s been tailored with desktops in mind.
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered marks another successful PlayStation port for PC. It’s high time console and computer players had a game to talk about together. Insomniac and Nixxes both understand what makes the PC platform special. A number of extensive graphics settings go a step above the PS5 remaster. While players have a myriad of ways to create the most comfortable Spidey simulator for themselves, what disarmed me most about Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered for PC was a studio that understood the platform before moving to it. This shows promise for PlayStation studios looking to bring its original content beyond the confines of a black and white console.
