Spider-Man is finally available for PC users. This may be Sony’s best move yet to reach a wider audience. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered is the updated version of 2018’s award-winning game for next-gen platforms. It’s fascinating for someone without a PlayStation to see the famed web-slinger in action. This week, Spider-Man moves from the PS4 and PS5 to the PC. He brings some graphics options that the PS5 and PS4 don’t have. This version was made with the help of Insomniac Games. It came with built-in ray-tracing, high-resolution assets, and support for ultra-wide screens. Many controls are also made specifically for PC gaming.
Here are my thoughts on Spider-Man Remastered, which I got to try before it came out for everyone else. Full disclosure: I haven’t even watched YouTube walkthroughs for the PS4 or PS5 versions of the original game. So, as you’ll see in the next review, I’ll slowly walk you through how I played the game. Spider-Man Remastered for PC is a modest port with enhanced visuals. As the spandex-clad title character, you fight Marvel villains. PC users might compare this journey to Rocksteady’s Batman: Arkham series, which inspired it.
Spider-Man Remastered
Spider-Man Remastered for PC has complete keyboard and mouse compatibility and button mapping. The default layout is pretty easy to understand, except for the dodge button on the left control key. It takes time because it works like the “crouch” action in most video games. It’s in an odd place. When my Spidey-Sense went off during a fight, I kept clicking “Windows” by accident, so I switched.
Spider-Man Remastered also comes with full support for gamepads. The PS5 DualSense controller has a built-in setting that lets you use the haptic feedback. This means PC users won’t have to set up DS4Windows to work with other programs. Now, I can’t say for sure that this is true because I don’t own one.
A look at how Spider-Man Remastered looks and plays on PC
When you launch Spider-Man Remastered, a window pops up so you can alter the settings. This game contains a motion blur slider and various customization options like V-sync and window mode. And while the latter usually makes players feel dizzy, it’s not nearly as annoying here.
Effects on the eyes and graphics
Spider-Man Remastered for PC has five different settings for how the game looks: “Very Low,” “Low,” “Medium,” “High,” and “Very High.” Every parameter is set to the bare minimum, starting with the lowest. The only exceptions are lens flares, chromatic aberration, and vignettes, which give them an even more angelic look like a scene from Sean Baker or Terrence Malick’s movie. In these scenes, glass looks like plastic, trash looks like unbaked clay, and buildings in the distance lack detail. Some of this can be fixed by changing the depth of the field. Turning preset up to “Low” turns on only bloom, which makes things like tree branches glow naturally when light passes through them.
No matter which preset you choose, the anti-aliasing is set to TAA (temporal), which makes the edges smoother. You can either set this to SMAA or leave it off. Setting it to SMAA will give you more frames, but the edges will be jagged and polygonal. As the name suggests, turning on-screen space reflections makes the tall buildings look clear on windows. But Spider-Reflection Man can only be seen when climbing walls at certain, limited angles. The PS5 version has ray-traced reviews that can be turned on to emphasize this. I didn’t have an RTX graphics card, so I couldn’t test them.
How the system works
Even with a cheap setup, the “Medium” presets in Spider-Man Remastered can make photos that stand out by adding facial pores and different hair strands. Before, these were airbrushed, which made the stubbles look like silly ink smudges. You can also change how shadows and weather particle effects look. However, higher levels will strain your GPU, so be careful.
You’ll spend 90% of the time swinging around town when you’re outside, so think about how important these two things are to you. You can play around with texture filtering to see what looks best from different angles. Most of the other choices on this list are harder on modern GPUs than this one. So, if you want Spider-Man Remastered PC to look smoother, feel free to raise the anisotropy setting to at least 4x. But if you still can’t get the game to run on your hardware, switch to the less advanced trilinear filtering option.
On the PC version of Spider-Man Remastered, magic is first seen in the “High” zones. The lighting and visuals look so lifelike that dust drifts in the air. As you freefall through New York, automobiles honk, and people applaud. You instantly respond, cut away your web, and propel yourself into the air, like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. I couldn’t have had a better experience. Between low and high settings, the textures are very different. Since the menu takes up half of the screen, you can see its effects in real-time. Also, I like games that let me change how things look without having to restart, and this feature has that feature.
Is it advisable to get Spider-Man Remastered for PC?
Compared to earlier PlayStation ports like Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone, Marvel’s Spider-Man (Remastered) is in a much better technical state. Due to its forgiving performance and visual requirements, the game can be played on old hardware from the GTX 950 era and before.
Even though the performance problems I had were inconsistent, they didn’t stop me from getting into the game. Even though the system is small and cheap, it still works perfectly. Remember that this review isn’t even based on Spider-Man Remastered’s final build, which is set to come out as a day-one update. Spider-Man Remastered should be played again on PC, especially by PS4 owners who don’t yet have a PS5. New PC players are in for a treat because they can look forward to a story that will keep them interested and gameplay that is as smooth and free-flowing as the Batman: Arkham series. (Batman: Arkham Knight isn’t on this list because it had a terrible start on PC.
Even so, I think Rs. 3,999 is a bit much for a simple remaster of a game that is almost four years old, and the PS5 remaster is getting close to its second birthday. One could argue that the “remastered” label is more important, but that doesn’t explain why God of War (2018) came out earlier this year with the same features and cost Rs. 3,299. At least you can now play Spider-Man from Marvel on your PC.