Highlights
- Spider-Man 2's fast travel system allows players to instantly transport themselves to any location, providing a near-seamless experience.
- The slight delay between selecting a spawn point and Spidey's arrival is not a loading bar, but a confirmation bar to ensure players can confirm their choice.
- The developers prioritized player accessibility over completely instantaneous fast travel, demonstrating their commitment to ensuring players can properly confirm their choices.
One of the developers behind Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has come forward to answer a question many early players have about the game’s fast-travel mechanic. One of the many aspects Insomniac’s Spider-Man games have earned praise for is their fluid web-swinging and parkour transversal systems, which allow players to soar above the streets of New York City just like Marvel’s beloved superhero. Of course, not everyone wants to take the time to swing from point A to point B, so Insomniac also implemented fast travel for all three of its Spider-Man titles.
Marvel’s Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales handled fast travel differently than the upcoming Spider-Man 2 will, as they still had to account for longer load times on the older PlayStation 4 console. Players would select a fast-travel spot on the in-game map, then a humorous animation would play showing Peter or Miles riding the New York subway in their full superhero costume. Early clips of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 released ahead of its launch later this week show that its version of fast travel is much quicker, with Peter and Miles able to instantly transport themselves to any location.
Insomniac 'Highly Encourages' Spider-Man 2 Players to Download the Day One Update
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 developer Insomniac advises players to download the day one update before starting to play the new game.
Many early Spider-Man 2 spectators are praising Insomniac for implementing such a near-seamless fast-travel system, but others point out that there is still a slight delay between the time the player selects their desired spawn point and Spidey’s arrival at that location. When this issue was discussed on one of the Resetera forums, Insomniac director of core technologies Mike Fitzgerald stepped in to clarify that the little bar that fills when a player tries to fast-travel is merely there to confirm their choice, not a loading bar.
Fitzgerald went on to reveal that he once considered having this “hold-to-confirm” bar removed to avoid this kind of confusion, but later decided that it was necessary to ensure that Spider-Man 2 remains accessible to all players. After all, the player using the map might not mean to fast-travel to a different location when they push the corresponding button, or they might change their mind while the “hold-to-confirm” indicator is filling. Fitzgerald says that ensuring that players could properly confirm their choices is more important to him and his team at Insomniac than any “Internet cred points” that they might have earned for completely instantaneous fast travel.
Even if it takes players about three or four seconds to hold down a button and confirm their choice to fast-travel in Spider-Man 2, the game is still being lauded for letting Peter Parker and Miles Morales quickly zip to any part of Spider-Man 2’s larger open world should they wish to forgo the usual web-swinging - though many will likely prefer to take the long way regardless. Spider-Man 2 appears to push the limits of the PlayStation 5’s advanced hardware in many ways, and fans will finally get to utilize the game’s almost seamless fast travel this Friday.
Marvel's Spider-Man 2 releases on October 20, exclusively for PS5.
Source: GamesRadar, Resetera
