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Conversion kings Nixxies take Insomniac’s web-swinging PlayStation 5 game, Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered, and polish it up for PC.

Sony has been quite generous lately in a massive turnaround in its past attitude towards PC gaming. We’ve brought God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn and Days Gone all to PC, with the PlayStation logo intro and exclusive new features. Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered is now on that prestigious list.

I’ve played the original release of Insomniac’s critically acclaimed Spider-Man game on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5, as well as the exclusive Spider-Man Remastered for PS5. With each iteration, the game has improved visually, an absolute joy to play every time.

Spider-Man Remastered was released on PlayStation 5 in 2020 as the final version of the game. Tweaked ray-traced visuals, faster frame rates and real-time ray-tracing are the main selling points; dat and the “Game of the Year”-esque inclusion of all DLC expansions. Still, on PlayStation 5, players are still forced to make compromises with the visuals with a choice between frame rate or visual brilliance.

With the new PC version, players with sufficiently specified PC rigs will be able to pull out all the stops and do what a spider can do, with an uncompromising, fully customizable level of visual fidelity. While value for money, the PlayStation 5 (if you can get your hands on one) offers a great Spider-Man experience, but it’s now the PC version that gives players the definitive version of Spider-Man Remastered.

I played the game on a PC equipped with an Intel i9-12900K CPU paired with 32GB PNY DDR5-6000 RAM in an MSI Z690 Carbon WiFi motherboard and an Nvidia RTX 3090 GPU. It’s a top quality machine and I was expecting great things with my 4K HDR monitor.
The game uses a launcher to select the first graphics options. Not unusual, but a little dated, especially since you can change all the settings in the game.

Playing around with the various graphics options, of which there are plenty, I decided to maximize the visual magic in 4K HDR with Nvidia’s machine learning DLSS set to “Quality”, this gave me a frame rate of around 80-100 frames per second. With DLSS off and using DLAA for the anti-aliasing, the frame rate dropped to about 70 frames per second. There are plenty of settings to tinker with, allowing even more modest setups to get a decent frame rate with high quality images.

Spider-Man Remastered offers players a new story set in a separate Spider-Man PlayStation game universe (Earth-1048 for the geeks out there), separate from both the comics and the movie iterations. The game begins with Spider-Man assisting NYPD Captain Yuri Watanabe in the arrest of Wilson Fisk, aka The Kingpin. This action creates a power vacuum that threatens to plunge New York into chaos and build the story.

In the mission-based plot, players face off against classic Spider-Man foes such as Vulture, Rhino, and Scorpion as they attempt to save the city from a bioweapon called Devil’s Breath and butt heads with the paramilitary Sable International. There’s a lot going on. The main game plot also forms the Miles Morales spin-off game and a possible sequel featuring Norman Osborne and his son Harry.

The three included DLC expansions include Silver Sable, Hammerhead, and Black Cat. These can be switched directly through the in-game menu, which in turn changes the available missions and city status to that of the selected DLC.

The gameplay has been refined and polished to a glorious shine. The animations are smooth and the controls are very responsive. The physics, unlike some previous games (where webs would just be attached somewhere in the sky), makes sense, allowing players to swing on and around buildings with Spider-Man’s grace and acrobatic style.

I could swing around town for hours. And the game encourages this with collectibles and side missions. Web swinging is simple yet exciting. The city of New York has been meticulously modeled, making meandering through the streets and climbing tall buildings a joy.

The main missions include scheduled events where Spider-Man takes on goons, clearing waves of enemies before sometimes entering a building or performing other tasks. For the most part, the game has you swinging from A to B and then battling bad guys. This isn’t as repetitive as it sounds, because the game mechanics are so good, and I loved every moment of it.

Like I said, web swinging is a joy, just like fighting. The game is inspired by that of Batman Arkham games when it comes to the game’s highly kinetic combat. The Spider-Man feel of Spider-Man comes into play as you punch, kick and interweave opponents while dodging and swinging fists, bullets and missiles.

For some sections, which are very similar to the predator cards in the Batman games, Spider-Man can use stealth to take out enemies one by one with sneak attacks or by simply tying them in a row. As careful as I was, things would eventually degenerate into a fantastically frenetic brawl that was so exciting I almost forgot to breathe.

As players level up, new skills and combat moves become available. By collecting items and completing side missions, you can get tokens for new gear and spider suits. You can dress Spidey in everything from the classic cel-shaded cartoonish look to the jerry-rigged outfit from the latest movie. Many of the colors have special abilities that can be mixed and matched to give players an edge over enemies.

If you fancy a break from the main story, New York is full of things to do. There are robberies to stop, carjacks to chase and backpacks to find. There are also labs to explore and challenges to try. All these collectibles, side missions and mini-games award their own rewards, making them more than the usual busy work in the open world.

Activities aside, Spider-Man’s New York is dotted with locations that will be familiar to Marvel fans. You can chill atop Avengers Tower, take in the mystery of Doctor Strange’s Sanctum Sanctorum, pose for a selfie outside Josie’s Bar, or check out the offices of the likes of Nelson and Murdock.

These photogenic locations and the game’s glorious lighting contribute to a game with a versatile photo mode that’s hard to put down. I probably spent a few hours trying to capture the perfect photo of Spider-Man in action to fit into one of the many frame templates, including some classic comic book covers.

Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered is a massive game that’s done so well and looks absolutely amazing on PC. With the addition of the DLC expansions, it is a must-have for any Marvel fan of PC gaming. It’s a shame it doesn’t include the Miles Morales Spider-Man spin-off, but I daresay it will be on its way for PCs soon enough.

This review is coming a little later than I’d like due to a mix-up with our PlayStation NZ review code. I reviewed Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered with a retail version of the PC game on Steam. Spider-Man Remastered is now available for PC through Valve’s Steam service and the Epic Store. The game is also available for PlayStation 5.

verdict: 9.5/10