Sony’s commitment to a PC path with their games started way back with Horizon Zero Dawn, one of my personal favorites of the Sony IP family. While the initial release of that game was demanding on the CPU and GPU, it eventually smoothed out and became one of the more gorgeous PC games out there. To this day, it’s still in my top five experiences, and now even more so with the PC push.
Sony then followed HZD up with the 2018 God of War, a masterpiece prior to PC, and nothing short of perfection when it finally arrived on the elite side of the gaming tracks. I think I may have played that more on the PC than I did on the PlayStation, which is saying something considering how many hours I put in on the PlayStation. This was a gorgeous release, and for me, it meant that Sony was dead serious about getting involved in PC gaming.
Here we are now in 2022, the first big PC release from Sony is one of the more entertaining and one of the wildest of the bunch with Spider-Man: Remastered. This game first made its appearance on the PlayStation 4 before being remastered for the PlayStation 5. The PS5 included all the bells and whistles that worked all too well with the new PS hardware. The PC version of the same game brings that same magic and everything you would expect from a PC-designed title.
Let’s get right into this Insomniac beauty, shall we?
Same game, but damn it’s still good
Insomniac knows how to make a Spider-Man game. Be it Peter Parker-led or Miles Morales, they seem to capture everything fun about the characters and want players to sit back and relax and enjoy the ride. While I think I like Miles Morales’ family-centric story is a bit better, mainly because it is a smaller world with a more personal feel, I think Parker’s journey in the first game hits all the right notes like the comic series, while also using every ounce of villainy correctly within a competent three-act structure. Both are different characters living within the same world and telling two different stories. One is bigger, the other has more of a personal focus. Regardless of which one you choose to love the most, you get two different experiences playing each game, which is something you want when you’re figuring out which one to purchase. You simply cannot go wrong. Anyway, for this review, I enjoyed the hell out of Peter Parker’s adventure, and as I stated, I think if you’re looking for a more comic-focused parallel, then you have it with Spider-Man: Remastered.
As for the adventure itself, it’s huge. You get a bevy of side quests for Spidey to complete and you’re looking at 50-60+ hours of gameplay trying to complete everything, including the expansion DLC that is built into the game. There is so much to do beyond the main story, which is a complicated weaved web that surrounds Wilson Fisk’s capture at the beginning of the game and quickly involves a separate group that snatches his territory while he is incarcerated. The main story also involves other characters such as Doc Oc, Rhino, and a new group of demon mask-wearing mobsters that have a seedy backstory. You get quite a bit and more, which makes this adventure feel like it goes on forever. Nothing in the game seemed like it was wasted minutes. Everything seemed to have a purpose and it felt like it belonged in the world. That’s not to say that you won’t occasionally get a tad frustrated at some aspects of side quests, but for the most part, it’s non-stop adventuring.
In addition to all the above, you get a large cityscape to explore, and I know most of you will do a lot of exploring and moving around because quite frankly it’s one of the best parts of this game. It was great when it hit the PS4 and with the graphic upgrade (we’ll get there in a minute) you’ll want to see all the sights in a busy New York City landscape. I think exploration is absolutely one of the bigger driving points for this game. All of it is encouraged by random crime encounters in the city, which make it unpredictable fun. Exploring will probably be a mind-blowing experience for first-timers. When I played Miles Morales for the first time, and the first time I played a Spidey game, I couldn’t believe the draw distance and the amount of active landscape featured in the title. Everything is hustling and bustling with life, which makes you want to get to know it all even more.
As for the controls, they make touring the cityscape quite simple and fun. The PC version of Spider-Man: Remastered allows you to use a PS5 DualSense controller, which is worth the effort and money. Much like what the PS5 version of this game provided, as well as the Miles Morales game, you can feel the movement and tension of the web through the controller itself. It provides a natural motion of casting a web, slowly pushing down the R2 button, and then letting it go at the right time to sling the webslinger across New York buildings. You can feel your way through the motions and physics of the swing through the controller. It was wild in 2020 with the DualSense introduction, and the feeling of this game through the controller is still wild now. It just feels smooth and right, which bodes well for gamers wanting to really get into the story and character.
When you’re not swinging in the game (I could rephrase that, but I won’t), the fighting mechanics are just as smooth as the web-swinging ones. Taking a note from the good folks at Rocksteady, who perfected the multi-combat system of movement with superheroes, Insomniac gives you simple controls that make Spidey smoothly go from knocking people around to dodging attacks and finalizing mega knock-out punches. They do it with simplicity with one or two button mashing, leaving out the complication that most developers mistakenly implement where players must worry more about buttons than they do about enjoying the experience. The attacks and pulling everything off seamlessly are just mesmerizing and euphoric at times.
Another big plus of this game is how intricate the Spidey suit gets. You can choose from a vast array of suits that bring their own style and capability to the game. You can add to the suit’s devices and can quickly level up Spider-Man to get the most out of the suit and his abilities.
There is also an extensive skills tree included in this game that gives you the motivation to go on side quests and complete sometimes large tasks. The more XP you gain through completing missions and side quests, or by collecting items around the city, the more skills you get to unlock. The backend of Spider-Man: Remastered gives you choices out the wazoo and does a good job of motivating you to do everything in the game, though you’ll want to do everything without this extra push. During the first few hours of this game as I was leveling up, I forgot to even up the skills tree because I was simply having fun with the game. Anyway, the additional skills, gadgets, and suits were a huge plus in the overall adventure.
With this version of Spider-Man, you get everything that was released with the PlayStation 5 remaster. The game itself is enough to warrant a $59.99 price tag, especially if you have never played this game before. The inclusion of all the content, and the full compatibility with the DualSense (or any other controller you might have) makes this PC release beautiful.
Now, for the updates to the update.
What you get with the PC version
The PC version of Spider-Man: Remastered is absolutely decked out to the max with graphical improvements. The biggest of which is your ability to customize how you want it to look and much you want to press your GPU. For this review, I went max on everything and pushed my hardware (11th gen i7 and NVIDIA 3060 RTX card) as hard as it could go. What came out of that push was a ray tracing-led game that excelled beyond the PlayStation 5’s own results. Unlocked framerates with 4K compatibility and support for DLSS and DLAA were something the PS5 version couldn’t even touch. This is the superior version of the game. The final state of the game and final update that came out during the review period really did solidify this experience as the best of the bunch. I didn’t run into any issues over the course of the last few days. It has been smooth sailing, though I suspect there might be another update for launch. There is always an update at launch for games.
Beyond graphics, one of the cooler experiences that I didn’t get to try out, mainly because I don’t have an ultra-wide monitor, something I will reconsider, was the ability for ultra-wide support. I can only imagine how gorgeous the New York City landscape looks with this type of monitor. This game must really shine visually. I’ll have to put that on my wish list for upcoming experiences but knowing that this game offers that is something to write home about, especially if you have those gaudy monstrosities sitting in front of you. Don’t worry, I want the gaudiness too.
Overall, this game is best suited for high-powered PCs, though it’s flexible enough to work well on those PCs that aren’t the latest and greatest. The additional capabilities for an ultra-wide monitor and the gorgeous ray tracing that makes everything shine, reflect, and look unbelievable, make this the best way to go, especially if you haven’t played it before. If this is how Sony is going to treat PC games from its IP library, then sign me up for future titles. They seem to be on the right track.
On that note, let’s wrap this sucker up.
Conclusion
Insomniac’s Spider-Man: Remastered for the PC is the superior version of the game when compared to its previous platforms. It brings the best visuals, and the most compatibility options, allows you to play this with a DualSense and brings all the nifty content that you want to make this a long adventure. The optimization features of this game on the PC are crazy good, as well as allowing you to play the game how you want to play it. The PC elitist out there will be thrilled.
