It has been almost two years to this date that Sony entered the PC space in a big way with their inaugural first-party title Horizon: Zero Dawn. While it had its issues at launch, the publisher went on to bring God of War and Days Gone to the open platform, with Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection still slated for release this year. Their track record has been improving significantly, and with Nixxes Software now under their belt, the future looks even brighter for PlayStation on PC. While we’re still praying for fan favorites such as Bloodborne and Ghost of Tsushima to be announced, we get to revisit a PS4 classic. Released nearly four years ago, Marvel’s Spider-Man is one of the best adaptations of a comic book franchise. It featured just what we wanted from a Spider-Man game: quippy dialogue, a beautiful open world to explore, various villains and of course a huge array of fan service, from costumes to obscure references. The PC version not only includes all the post-release downloadable content, but also comes with some sparkling graphical options rarely seen in releases such as this. We dust off the cobwebs to see if Insomniac’s masterful piece of work is worth coming back to.

Spider-Man is no different from any other comic book franchise, as there are an abundant alternative takes on the quippy protagonist, be it a gritty noir or egotistical futuristic version. Insomniac Games’ interpretation isn’t far off from what we’ve come to expect when you hear the name Spider-Man. It has the familiar faces we’ve become accustomed to, such as Peter Parker, Mary-Jane Watson and Aunt May, while establishing more recent additions to the franchise (at least within the last decade) such as Miles Morales and Yuri Watanabe. You don’t have to be a long time fan who knows every single one of the webslinger’s adventures to appreciate the story, especially considering there are extensive bios for everyone you meet, but it helps as there are plenty of references that will undoubtedly go over the heads of newcomers. The dialogue itself is well written as it captures Spider-Man’s humorous nature even in the more serious situations. That’s not to say he’s a one trick pony as there are some dire situations where he will show a larger range of emotions, but just expect to hear a lot of jokes throughout your ten to fifteen-hour playthrough.

Like the more recent Tom Holland films, this isn’t an origin story for Spider-Man and Peter Parker, as the Webhead has been fighting crime for at least eight years up until this point. For the most part, this is a very enclosed tale, with the core cast of antagonists being made up of classical villains such as Scorpion, Rhino, The Vulture, and more. I believe you can find one character who’s more affiliated with other Marvel properties, but he’s part of a line of extracurricular activities. They even put Martin Li, AKA Mister Negative, at the forefront of the plot, which is a fantastic choice considering he’s a less known villain in the universe. The story itself isn’t going to win any awards, but it does what it sets out to do: create engaging scenarios for the comic book superhero to dish out his wit. There’s a strong theme of revenge that unfortunately I wish was unpacked a bit more, as the main attraction and focus is the outlandish set pieces. The weaving of Miles Morales into the story is also done, for the most part, wonderfully, even though it starts to become heavy-handed and a little forced in the later parts of the campaign. Overall, this is what you’d want for a comic book video game, even teasing the future of the franchise at the end.

If there’s one game you can compare Spider-Man to it’s Batman: Arkham City, and almost to a surprising degree. Whether it’s traversal, combat or stealth, you’ll be instantly reminded of Rocksteady’s vigilante series, although Marvel’s Spider-Man does differentiate itself. In terms of combat, this would be classified as an action adventure brawler where our favorite superhero must fend for himself against an overwhelming numbers of bad guys by timing their attacks and webbing them up for the police to take away. There’s even numerous gadgets that can be unlocked that will generally trap enemies in place or distract them long enough for you to put the beat down on them. Flying across the screen makes far more sense when Spider-Man does it as he literally needs to fling himself towards his opponent with his webshooters. The combat mechanics, while a little simplistic, are overly satisfying as getting into the flow of things can lead to serene moments, especially when you get into more complex combos. With that said, it can be a bit finicky, as we’ve run into scenarios where the enemy is clearly in view but the webslings can’t find them. Targeting can also sometimes be a pain when there are more than a couple of bodies on screen, and the striking distance can be put into question at times. This isn’t to mention that enemy AI isn’t exactly the brightest, as those with rocket launchers can be the worst, sometimes firing only a couple of feet away, giving you no time to dodge and blasting them back in the process.

Outside of combat, we’re also treated to a colossal city to explore. It’s not too unusual to see an open world setting in a Spider-Man game, but it’s the way Insomniac Games does it that makes it special. The developers have lovingly crafted Manhattan, with of course the Marvel influences spread throughout. This means you can find memorable locations, from the more obvious Avengers tower, to smaller buildings such as the law office of Nelson and Murdock. While this is a contained story with only mentions of characters outside of the core Spider-Man fiction, there are little details hidden throughout the city that show the developer’s dedication to the lore and will no doubt please longtime fans. The way you traverse Manhattan is of course by using your seemingly infinite supply of webshooters, and boy is it gratifying. There is no game that better captures the enjoyment of running across rooftops, climbing up buildings and swinging across a 6×2 km world than Marvel’s Spider-Man. It’s almost reminiscent of Radical Entertainment’s Prototype, but in a significantly more positive manner, as both games share similar speedy traversal mechanics, among other things.

Manhattan is also brimming with life thanks to the various side activities you can partake in. There’s a lot to do outside of the main storyline, from more action heavy conflicts such as taking down armed gunman and capturing bases, to testing your swinging abilities by catching pigeons and tailing drones. There are even a handful of story-driven side quests, although I do wish there were more dedicated to villains. Most of these are lackluster and surprisingly short, outside of one that involves taking down a mobster/biker with superhuman strength. There’s a lot of opportunity to expand upon Insomniac Games’ Spider-Man universe, but instead we’re left with only a brief glimpse. At the very least most of the side tasks are tied in with franchise familiars, even though they barely show their face, or don’t appear directly at all, only leaving you audio logs to listen to. In the end, the side activities are a fun distraction while swinging your way to the next story marker, but don’t feel fully realized.

PC Impressions

As far as a PC port goes, Marvel’s Spider-Man is astonishing. Graphically, it holds up after four years as Insomniac Games have created a breathtaking world, and the addition of raytracing only elevates it. The remaster fully supports ultrawide screens, not only in gameplay but also in its cinematics. It’s not perfect, though, as we did notice irregularities, such as UI (specifically in side quests) being stretched, and the sound level indicators whenever someone is talking to Spider-Man remotely going outside the borders of their static image. These are minor gripes that are noticeable from time to time, but it doesn’t truly detract from the magnificent attention to detail the port has seen to contribute even more screen real-estate, especially given the field of view can be adjusted, as well.

Speaking of which, Marvel’s Spider-Man supports an incredible array of graphical options. While most ports of older titles come with the bare minimum, this is closer to games developed specifically for PC, with various texture options, shadow quality, depth of field, level of detail, hair, ambient occlusion, HDR and more. You can even turn down the motion blur and film grain strength, along with adding bloom, lens flare and chromatic aberration. And for those who don’t have the best of the best computer, there’s upscaling methods such as NVIDIA’s DLSS and AMD’s FSR 2.0, although we had less than ideal experiences with both. Suffice to say, the amount of options allows for your visual experience to be customized by a significant degree.

The one big issue, though, is that if you want to play in windowed mode, you’ll be stuck with a locked 1920x1080 resolution and whatever the monitor’s refresh rate is with no way of adjusting it through the in-game or launcher menus. This is a huge sticking point as sometimes I don’t want my PC to be eating up too much resources (which Marvel’s Spider-Man certainly does) when I’m casually grinding side quests or just exploring the world. We also noticed a bit of an issue with rendering the world whilst swinging around; sometimes assets when turning the camera too fast can take a split second to load in. We’re not talking whole buildings, but small pieces of the environment you’ll catch being empty white spaces. This most likely won’t be much of an issue with a controller, but while using a mouse it’s noticeable from time to time. Speaking of which, the keyboard and mouse adaptation has been done fantastically. You can completely rebind the keys, but the default settings are accommodating to the average user.

The PC package also includes The City That Never Sleeps downloadable content that rolled out after the initial release. This includes Black Cat’s The Heist, Hammerhead’s Turf Wars and Silver Sablinova’s Silver Lining. The expansion itself is solid, although it doesn’t hold up to the core experience, especially the latter two. They’re not integrated straight into main campaign, but instead need to be initiated through the menu; it would have been nice to see these incorporated directly, but that most likely would have needed a bigger overhaul than what was necessary. Regardless, this is additional content on top of an already amazing Spider-Man game.

Closing Comments:

Marvel’s Spider-Man is one of -- if not the best -- adaptation of a comic book franchise, and the PC version only better highlights Insomniac’s work. Nixxes has helped completely revitalize the four-year-old game where you’ll want to completely revisit fifteen-hour adventure. It’s visually spectacular with a lot of bells and whistles you’ve come to expect from PC-developed AAA titles, the keyboard and mouse transition works flawlessly -- not to mention the gameplay holds up -- and ultrawide screen support goes a long way. The remaster isn’t without its faults, though, as windowed mode is limited, we did run into performance issues while running raytracing (at least more than usual) and drawing the environment can get finicky with fast camera movements. Still, Marvel’s Spider-Man is spectacular beyond bounds. Whether you’re a comic book or PC gaming enthusiast, Marvel’s Spider-Man is well worth experiencing for the first time or once more.