A Game of the Year contender for 2018, one of the best Marvel video games ever made, and one of Insomniac Games' finest pieces of work, Marvel's Spider-Man is finally heading to PC, marking the series' first departure from the PlayStation family of consoles. Announced during Sony's stacked June State of Play, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered will arrive on PC on August 12, 2022 in just over a month. For those that have already played Spider-Man, this is the perfect opportunity to swing back around for a second, third, or even fourth go, and for those who haven't had the chance to experience what is arguably the Web-Head's best video game outing, there's almost no excuse not to.
First releasing on the PlayStation 4 in 2018, Marvel's Spider-Man has changed a little since it hit store shelves. While the main story mode and gameplay are all the same as they were day-one, there's been a few slight tweaks to visuals, along with some DLC additions that extend Spidey's story for a few hours. On top of that, the PC version is set to boast even more visual fidelity and performance prowess than its PlayStation 5 counterpart, making this version potentially the best available.
Marvel's Spider-Man's General Gameplay Loop
For those that haven't played Marvel's Spider-Man just yet, it's a good idea to get a general understanding of the gameplay and story before diving in head-first. Set eight years into Peter Parker's web-slinging career as Spider-Man, the game sees a slightly more adult Peter attempt to grapple with all the usual Spidey stuff: relationships, super villains, great power, responsibility etc.
The general gameplay loop sees the player don the Spidey mask and swing around a beautifully-rendered New York City. During free-roam, players will run into random crimes that they'll need to stop, find hidden Kingpin bases they'll need to infiltrate, and help NY's citizens out with their everyday superhero needs. Much like the beloved PS2 Spider-Man 2 title, once a few side missions have been completed, the story then moves on at a near-perfect pace.
Marvel's Spider-Man is, on paper, a typical third-person superhero venture, but its mechanics propel it far from the realm of mediocrity. With first-class character animations along with excellent controller feedback, web-swinging in a Spider-Man game has never felt better. Further, with Insomniac placing an emphasis on Spidey's agility during combat, the game's encounters manage to stand out from the crowd, distancing themselves from Batman: Arkham's freeflow system.
What's Included in the PC Version of Marvel's Spider-Man
Rather than just being a port of the 2018 PS4 original, Marvel's Spider-Man on PC is actually the Remastered version of the game, which dropped exclusively for the PlayStation 5. At the time, it seemed a little odd to be "remastering" a game that only came out a few years prior, but the final product is more than worth the time and effort that went into it.
On top of Marvel's Spider-Man's stellar campaign, which clocks in at around 30 hours, the Remastered version of the game also comes with the three story DLCs that came out in the year following Spider-Man's release. All packaged under the City That Never Sleeps banner, these three story DLCs take place about a month or two after Spider-Man's story mode comes to a close. While they're only a few hours long each, these DLCs do add some fan-favorite characters like Black Cat and Hammerhead, and give fans even more top-tier Spidey content to chew on.
Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered included a range of graphical and performance options that players could customize. Performance-wise, players could swap between a Fidelity Mode, a Performance Mode, and then a few months after release, a Performance RT (ray-tracing) mode, which gave players the best of both worlds. With the game running on new hardware, Insomniac was able to really push the technical boundaries of the game, and ended up delivering an incredibly smooth, visually-stunning experience that easily stands as one of the most technically-impressive PS5 games out right now.
Despite Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered releasing in just over a month for PC, Sony and Insomniac have actually been pretty quiet about how the game will run on PC. It's currently unclear what the control scheme will look like, what graphical and performance options will be available on launch, or what accessibility features will carry over from the PS5 version of the game. If Marvel's Spider-Man is anything like Sony's last few PC ports, such as God of War and Death Stranding, then it's pretty likely that PC players will get to access a whole slew of new technical options to truly customize their experience.
Of course, as was the case with God of War, it'll only be a matter of time before Marvel's Spider-Man on PC is modded to hell and back. While Sony likely won't officially endorse mods, that won't stop talented modders from adding their fair share of genuinely intriguing (and bizarre) content. Fans should expect to see Thomas the Tank Engine swinging around New York in about two months or so.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales is Coming Later This Year
Announced soon after Sony's State of Play, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, the direct sequel to the 2018 game, is also coming to PC later on this year. Currently, Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered is slated for an August 12 release, while Miles Morales is set to follow a few months after, with a current blanket date of Fall 2022. Spider-Man: Miles Morales takes its predecessor's gameplay and dials it up to 11, putting players in the fresh sneakers of Miles Morales as he learns to harness his Spider powers.
As Miles, players have control over some new abilities, ranging from bio-electricity to active camouflage, which can be used both in and outside of combat. Though Spider-Man's character animations are a sight to behold, Miles Morales somehow takes it even further, giving Miles even more swing-out and air-based animations than Peter ever had. Miles Morales isn't quite a fully fledged sequel, but it does show that Insomniac is eager to innovate and push the franchise forward in new and exciting ways.
Marvel’s Spider-Man is available now on PS4 and PS5. A PC version will be releasing on August 12.