Spider-Man 2 is now the PS5’s definitive technical showpiece

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 is finally here, and on the cusp of the PlayStation 5’s third birthday, assumes the throne as the console’s most technically impressive game to date.

[Ezio2048]

Spider-Man 2 is definitely the best technical showcase on PS5 especially considering the big open world, insane traversal speed and best ray tracing implementation seen on consoles. Although I do feel that GoW: Ragnarok and Horizon Forbidden Westlook better from just pure visual standpoint.

[Seraphim]

part of that is probably due to the dense city. In GoW and Horizon you have less going on with a much wider view of the world. In GoW you also have a confined world that is well crafted. A benefit of linear games. In Spiderman you're in an open, densely populated city consisting of tall building after tall building. Even then the trees, reflections on the buildings windows, the buildings themselves, etc, are all exceptional and look just as good as Horizon or GoW in their own right; at least imo. I guess what I'm trying to say, simply put, is that Spiderman 2 just isn't as picturesque as a game like Horizon. It really does look dam good, a real showstopper showcasing PS5, and what can be accomplished in modern gaming.

[--Onilink--]

I’d even say Ratchet is a better looking game as well, though those 3 are all very different art styles that give the devs a bit more freedom than a realistic city environment (plus only Horizon is also an open world and its certainly not the same kind of density)

You can also really tell the difference in image quality when they do the linear slow paced sections, the characters and environments look WAY better

That said, its crazy just how good Insomniac is from a technical perspective to do all the things they have achieved with this game and really going for a full RT game regardless of the performance mode you pick.

Especially given how bug free and polished the game is (outside of a couple of hard crashes so far )

[EvertonFC]

I tried going through a window and it was a mirror 🤣😂 RT is very good

[Profchaos]

Yeah in some way it sure is a full open world with ray tracing running at 60 or if you have a vrr display in full fidelity mode with vrr uncapped 80 fps.

But it's not the only technical showcase I was pretty floored by how good the calisto protocol looked after playing Ono's plus earlier this month it's visuals and mocap made spidy look stiff in comparison but it was relatively small and linear

[--Onilink--]

Fidelity mode with uncapped framerate is 40-60, might get higher looking up at a wall or the sky I guess. It’s the uncapped performance mode that goes up to the 80s

For Fidelity VRR, I would actually recommend the Smooth option instead, since the VRR window in the PS5 actually starts at 48fps, not 40, so anything between 40 and 48 will not actually be using VRR. I still like that they have those options already though, it means they dont really need to do a patch for the game to take advantage of the PS5 Pro if it ever comes out

[Eonjay]

Pro will probably get the Balanced CRR mode to a solid 60.

[Abear21]

This is great info and holy shite how far consoles have come to have all these graphical options, never would have thought it just a few years ago. Good on Insomniac for not hand holding and just giving us the options. I have a 120hz display but no VRR. Gonna try that fidelity tonight, only had a couple hours with performance launch night. Can’t wait to swing back in!

[Shane Kim]

It looks really good, but I still think Horizon FW holds that crown.

[DarXyde]

To be fair, HFW runs on Decima, which quite frankly is an engine so far ahead of its time. I still think Zero Dawn gives many modern games a run for their money, and it's open world. That's incredibly impressive. With these two studios, I think Guerilla is superior with technical showcasing but Insomniac is superior in gameplay.

That said, Insomniac is seriously adapting and getting even better, and it shows. Spider-Man 2 looks great, runs phenomenally, and the ray tracing is nothing short of chef's kiss.

Wolverine might really be something to behold.

[--Onilink--]

I think its honestly more about the art in Horizon than the tech (not that the tech isnt impressive too). It even took them a couple of months to really enhance the performance mode which really took a hit at launch and thats without RT.

Visually I even prefer Ratchet to SP2, though again, SP2 might be technically more impressive.

All in all, either with Wolverine, Ratchet or something completely new, I really want to see Insomniac really expand all this tech knowledge they have gotten into different environments and art styles

[VariantAEC]

If that's the case why doesn't Ghost of Tsushima ever come up? That to me is PS4's best open world visually.

Horizon Forbidden West is not better than Marvel's SM2 on several objective measures including max draw distance and a noticable lack of pop-in both being noticably superior in Marvel's Spider-Man 2. This completely forgetting and dismissing the fact that MSM2 has RT reflections on everything as well. Marvel's New York feels alive. I have never seen a realtime city working fully MSM2 makes The Matrix Awakens tech demo look a bit meh on a few levels. Basically all the.major set-pieces in MSM2 shame the one moment TMA tech demo has too.

Horizon Burning Shores does rectify pop-in issues and I'm a sucker for volumetric clouds (I mentioned GoT and I love Driveclub in part because the clouds really drive atmosphere in those games), but HBS huge fluffy clouds don't even cast shadows. You forget about the clouds in Burning Shores until you look up and then if you remember they are there, and it p•••es me off that Decima isn't being used to allow clouds to cast shadows. Then you also remember the clouds in HBS don't actually move...

Marvel's Spider-Man 2 is definitely the new technical benchmark on PS5 not HFW. Trees, lighting, model variety, object density, geometry complexity, traversal speed, RT, much less pop-in and ultrafast loading... PS5 is being almost fully utilized here.

HFW and HBS DLC add-on don't measure up to MSM2. Including the impressive final fight in Horizon Burning Shores. If you know... you know.

[VariantAEC]

@--Onilink--
I'm more interested in Insomniac sharing their knowledge with the rest of PlayStation Studio's so that everyone can make better games.

Most people only know Insomniac after Marvel's Spider-Man on PS4 but I was their since Spyro The Dragon on PS1 (their second game) and even then I knew Insomniac Games was top-tier. Techwise on PS1 they did some incredible things just to display Spyro's massive maps without fading things out like Syphon-Filter, Ape Escape, GT and many other PS1 games (all the aforementioned being first party games) did back in the day.

Only after Spyro The Dragon did we see games use similar LoD tech to prevent environmental stuff from simply vanishing into the distance. Spyro 1 did that on the first PS (probably why PS wanted to aquire them after Spyro 3). Having vary far draw distances was a PS2 thing for some devs but in actuality it still took 4 or 5 years for most games to push out draw distances and abandon the fade to nothing that was common in early 3D games including on PS1.

Ratchet and Clank had complex background AI routines to make Metropolis seem alive on PS2 and of course the amount of geometry their engine could handle was second to none all at 60FPS. Naughty Dog and Insomniac Games collaborated early to make and improve their own in-house game engines back on PS, you can see Insomniac Games and Naughty Dog both credit each other with technologies created by the other developer's teams in their games.

Insomniac Games very low-key likely helped create some incredible tech that we have seen used by the rest of the industry for decades now.

[DarXyde]

VariantAEC,

Ghost of Tsushima is absolutely a sight to behold. As for Spider-Man 2, it does look better, but I mention Zero Dawn as a game that, even on PS4, looks insanely good to this day.

I would also hope that Spider-Man 2 looks better than Forbidden West; it's a first party title released later in PS5's life and Insomniac has had some good practice on PS5 already. Forbidden West is also cross gen.

Not out to make Insomniac look bad. They've got a real star with Spider-Man 2. My point is that Decima is a hell of an engine.

Both deserve their flowers.

[Ezio2048]

I have a 120hz vrr tv but I keep vrr off in TV and ps5 system settings as it turns off the local dimming in my tv. But when I start Spiderman 2, vrr option seems to be auto enabled with smoothed option.
Should I turn it off? Does keeping it on affect anything?

[Zeke68]

Keep it on.

[--Onilink--]

Why though? If he doesnt have VRR enabled on his TV, it will only cause the game to tear if there is a drop (not that it happens that often) and provides literally no benefit to him, if anything it will also affect the dynamic resolution range to be affected too

[Johnh5223]

VRR smooth with fidelity on my samsung is the best way to play the ray tracing is phenomenal my reflection on a steel container was life like how it warped I have not seen that in a console game ever. In Harrys new Mae foundation. Also Giant Sandman looked incredible. Horizon and Ratchet are still the 2 best looking games but it may be art style. The density of the city is also ridiculous traffic and people. The only bummer is the textures on buildings could use better bump mapping looks a little flat but the Raytracing usage may be the reason and thats ok with me.

[--Onilink--]

If you dont have VRR enabled on your TV, there is no reason to use it in the game either, it changes the dynamic resolution scaling a bit and whenever the game drops some frames, it will cause tearing.

Granted, you are unlikely to note them since it usually stays there and the smooth option doesnt really try to go over the target framerate, but it literally doesnt help you in any way if your TV has VRR disabled

[Ezio2048]

Thanks. I will keep it off then.

No idea why the disagrees with my question? It was a genuine question?

[Zeke68]

I meant keep it on on both TV and PS5 if that was unclear. Best way to play the game imho.

[Ezio2048]

I wish I could but I have Sony X90H. The TV is amazing mind you, but since it was the first "PS5 ready" TV launched by Sony, it did not have VRR support on launch. It was added later via patch and it disables local dimming, which was fixed on later models like X90J,K,L etc. VRR is great but no local dimming absolutely destroys the visual quality.

[Zeke68]

That sucks. I bought my Sony VRR TV last year and it works flawless, sorry to hear they screwed up your local dimming. I totally understand if you want to turn all VRR off then. :)

[Hereandthere]

The best looking console game ever. Its not even close.

[babadivad]

It's very impressive.

[Blaze929]

Ragnarok is more technically impressive to me

[derek]

Nah, it's a looker tho. I think demons souls is much impressive along with the expansion pack for forbidden west.

[RupeeHoarder]

In some regards it is. The lack of any load in a game this expansive is truly next-gen. There is nothing that takes you out of the transitions and breaks the immersion. Demon’s Souls, Horizon, God of War, Ratchet & Clank and Spider-Man 2 are all absolute lookers. I can’t wait to see what Naughty Dog is cooking up, as I’m sure it’s going to trump all of these based on how well Last of Us 2 held up on last gen hardware.

[EvertonFC]

Just finished my playthrough, absolute bonkers, insane mayham which just keeps giving weather that be story, combat or enemy types.
What I find great is that the game just feels like one big story and not side quests if that makes sense, even the side quests feel like the main story and so much to find, look at, photo mode moments, just exploring the landmarks etc.
Excellent use of haptics throughout also.

[Dandalandan117]

I'm just a couple of hours through the game.
What settings did you use? Fidelity or Performance?

[EvertonFC]

Fidelity was great, but I'll go performance on my 2nd playthrough. It's just down to personal preference really tbh.

[Dandalandan117]

I'm switching back and forth yesterday but can't decide.
But considering I my TV doesn't have VRR support yet then I'll probably go with performance for now.

[Father__Merrin]

Holding out for Resistance 4...