A new showcase for visual detail, ray tracing - and the PS5 SSD.
On the eve of PlayStation 5’s three-year anniversary,Insomniac Gameshas returned with a new Spider-Man adventure.
At first glance it may feel familiar but, trust me, there is a lot here to unpack.
Like Miles before it, Spider-Man 2 loads quickly.
The first of these is traversal speed.
Soon afterwards, you’re given access to the Web Wings which completely changes the pace of traversal.
This also enables the developers to pull of some pretty fancy transitional tricks.
Both the speed of flight and the camera work itself are tremendous.
The level of visible detail has been pushed out significantly, in fact.
There now seems to be a mid-point between the full near-field detail and distant LODs.
Just walking down the street reinforces this perception and it represents a nice improvement.
However, there’s more to this - distant detail and variety have been greatly enhanced too.
The game manages to shake that feeling of countless textured boxes serving as the city.
It’s an impressive accomplishment.
The other major feature that Insomniac pushed with Miles back at launch is ray-traced reflections.
It’s essential for a game packed with gleaming skyscrapers and reflective surfaces galore.
It almost feels like revenge for the2018 Puddlegate situation, if you remember that one.
Spider-Man 2 includes both a performance and quality mode, which each deliver a stable frame-rate.
Both quality modes use dynamic resolution scaling, ranging from 1440p to 4K.
Insomniac’s temporal injection is used to handle anti-aliasing duties as usual.
Performance mode is 60fps, with dynamic resolutions ranging from 1008p to 1440p.
Finally, there are three bespoke VRR modes - off, smooth or uncapped.
Off is obvious but smooth versus uncapped is interesting.
For my money, I prefer the 40fps mode as it strikes a perfect middle ground.
Why did they make this decision?
I think part of this ties into the new, larger map and specifically, its water.
What this means for the player is that you’ll spend a lot more time crossing the river.
Thus, for Spider-Man 2, Insomniac opted to extend RT reflections to all bodies of water as well.
This isn’t the only enhancement to RT reflections either.
In Spider-Man 2, however, reflections of reflections are now visible if you look closely.
Secondly, VFX are now rendered using ray tracing.
They’re also just higher quality with less smearing and fizzle.
Nothing else comes close.
If you look beyond the reflections, you’ll discover another major improvement - interior spaces.
Spider-Man does things differently.
And where have we seen these characteristics before?
Why, the ray traced reflections, of course.
One thing is for sure - this is a remarkably elegant solution to a difficult problem.
This investment in animation work makes a big statement, right from the introduction sequence.
Of course, many of the excellent features introduced in their prior games make a full return.
The illusion remains strong even when zooming way in.
Really though, these are just tiny nitpicks in what is an otherwise gorgeous game.
Sound propagation has also been added so sounds and voices are influenced by their position in the world.
In terms of the game itself, the developers have done an excellent job there as well.
The game is great, the technology is impressive and the whole package is remarkably polished.
