On the eve of PlayStation 5’s three-year anniversary, Insomniac Games has returned with a new Spider-Man adventure. Built for PlayStation 5, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 expands on the Insomniac’s in-house technology, delivering a game with a larger scope and a brand-new spider plot to follow. The title in this case couldn’t be more apt with players swapping between the two Spider-Men seamlessly over the course of the story as you explore a greatly expanded game world. In DF tradition then, I wanted to break down this game’s new visual and gameplay features highlighting the positives and negatives along the way. At first glance it may feel familiar but, trust me, there is a lot here to unpack.
The release of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 marks Insomniac’s fourth game shipped on PS5, following Miles Morales, Spider-Man Remastered and Ratchet and Clank. It’s a level of production efficiency that continues to impress and Spider-Man 2 is perhaps the largest production of the four, expanding the size and scope of the world while doubling down on granular detail. With Miles, there were two major innovations brought to the table on PS5 back at launch: fast loading and ray-traced reflections. Both of these features return in Spider-Man 2 and each have received numerous improvements, allowing scenarios to exist which were not possible in prior entries.
Like Miles before it, Spider-Man 2 loads quickly. Fire up the game from the PS5’s home menu and you’re dropped back into the game world within seconds. It almost feels as if the game was simply suspended in the background, yet it loads with minimal delay. They’ve also leveraged these technologies in additional ways to enhance the experience beyond what was possible in the cross-gen prequels.
