Highlights

  • October was a huge month for the gaming industry, with releases like Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2, despite the negative impact of developer layoffs.
  • Both games showcase impressive visuals and technical features, demonstrating the evolution of the gaming industry.
  • Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 stand out as true next-gen games with seamless transitions, almost no loading screens, and consistent 60 FPS on consoles.

October was an absolutely huge month for the gaming industry. While it was unfortunately marred by seemingly countless developer layoffs that have negatively impacted so many of the people who have helped to make 2023 such an incredible year for gaming, October was still a massive month when it came to video game releases, and some of those titles ended up being some of the best games of the whole year. While Marvel's Spider-Man 2 led the charge, Alan Wake 2 closed out the month with a bang.

On the surface, there really isn't all that much that ties Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2 together. Both games are higher-budget titles, both are highly-anticipated sequels, and both released within just a week of one another, and that's about it. But digging a little deeper, both Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 actually highlight the same recent trend in gaming, and hopefully, fans are still only seeing the beginnings of it.

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Alan Wake 2 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 Are True Next-Gen Games

Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 Have Great Visuals

Both Alan Wake 2 and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 are the most recent examples of true next-gen gameplay experiences, and that can be seen throughout both titles. One of the biggest examples of both games' next-gen qualities are their impressive visuals and other technical features. Games have only continued to grow more graphically impressive over time, and games like Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 show just how much the industry has evolved since its debut all those decades ago.

When it comes to Marvel's Spider-Man 2, its graphics may not be the most technically impressive in all of gaming, but for an open-world action-adventure game of its scale, it's incredibly impressive, with superb realistic lighting, highly-detailed textures, architecture, and character models, and an open-world that's densely packed with NPCs. Alan Wake 2, on the other hand, is actually one of the most technically impressive games around at the minute, using Remedy's Northlight engine to great effect to create some incredibly realistic environments and deliver some of the most naturalistic lighting effects in gaming. It also helps that Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2 do all of this while also running at a fairly consistent 60 FPS on consoles.

Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 Have Almost No Loading Screens

Another big element of Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 that makes both games feel as though they're truly next-gen is their lack of loading screens. Every inch of New York City in Spider-Man 2 is freely explorable, with no loading screens breaking the flow of web-swinging. The transition from gameplay to cutscene and vice versa is also seamless in most instances, leading to a game that feels smooth and polished. Alan Wake 2 follows suit, with very few loading screens taking players out of the experience, with the only ones occurring when players die and swap characters.

This lack of loading screens is especially impressive in Alan Wake 2 and Spider-Man 2 when the environment changes seamlessly around the player. For instance, in Spider-Man 2, during the Black Cat chase sequence, players are zipping through portals that teleport them across New York City and beyond, with no loading screen or frame-drop interrupting any part of the chase. In Alan Wake 2, this occurs when players swap out a Plot Idea in the Dark Place, causing the environment around them to change almost instantly, often changing the map's layout and enemy placement.