Highlights
- Insomniac's technological advancements in games like Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart and Marvel's Spider-Man 2 set a new standard for current-gen experiences.
- The fast travel feature in Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is significantly improved, with instantaneous load times and the ability to choose any point on the map once districts have unlocked fast travel.
- While the previous fast travel cinematics in Marvel's Spider-Man were charming, the new fast travel system's efficiency and speed are a major improvement, even though the cinematics will be missed.
Insomniac’s technological boundaries are exceeded with each new game and each sets a precedent for what current-gen experiences should be. Moreover, Insomniac’s newest games and the new advancements in performance they demonstrate are typically a building block for what future Insomniacs could potentially offer. So while Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart generated a satisfying portal-warping mechanic with its impressively quick load times, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has iterated upon load time efficiency for swapping between Spider-Men and enabling fast travel.
PlayStation’s latest State of Play gave fans a look at precisely how fast these load times are on PS5, where a brief cinematic of Peter exercising on the side of a building led straight into him being playable once players swap to him from Miles. Then, fast travel is legitimately fast now as players apparently choose any point on a map to head to, though it sounds like they’ll need to have unlocked fast travel in that district by completing activities first. This fast travel zooms into the map and has Spider-Man instantly sailing through the air, and also means that one endearing feature of Marvel’s Spider-Man has become antiquated.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2’s Fast Travel is a Sign of the Times
It’s undeniable that the changes made to fast travel for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 are an improvement in terms of the actual function of fast travel. Having a more instantaneous load time is the goal, of course. Likewise, what Insomniac has achieved is ideal in an industry where squeeze-throughs and other blatant loading screens have become ubiquitously criticized by fans.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order or Final Fantasy 7 Remake are only two examples where their frequency is notable, with recent entries on PS5 standing out that much more sorely. The PS5 surely boasts impressive hardware, but even to this day, its potential as a current-gen console hasn’t seemed to be tapped.
Now, with Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 attempting to rectify that, it’s a boon that fast travel and protagonist-swapping will be as instantaneous as it is. Once players have fast travel available, one of its coolest features is that players will not need to choose a specific landmark to fast travel as they did with Marvel’s Spider-Man.
Marvel’s Spider-Man’s Fast Travel Cinematics Will Be Missed
On the other hand, Insomniac’s previous fast travel implementations were full of charm, and that will be missed regardless of how seamlessly quick fast travel is now. Fast travel in Marvel’s Spider-Man always brought about an obvious loading screen, but instead of having it be a static image of something with text in front of it, Marvel’s Spider-Man remained immersive by representing that fast travel with Spider-Man riding the subway. This came as a variety of different cinematics with Spider-Man in different positions on the subway, and while they were fairly quick themselves it was a nice touch when having to supply some sort of load screen in the meantime.
Fast travel was never a necessity in Marvel’s Spider-Man since it is exhilarating and quick to maneuver through the city anyway, but these fun cinematics made it worthwhile if players couldn’t be bothered to swing on over to the other side of Manhattan. Almost nobody would prefer to have these cinematics over an insanely fast load time that instantly transports them somewhere or swaps them to another protagonist, though Insomniac did the absolute best with what it could when load times weren’t as efficient and that’s worth a moment of silence as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 treks ahead as a PS5-exclusive.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 launches on October 20, exclusively for PS5.
