The enhanced version of Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered is now available on the PC platform.

The enhanced PC version was developed by the Insomniac and Nixxes studio, which was acquired by Sony a few months ago and is their first project under their umbrella, and now they are discussing with us the scenes from the launch of the game that was acclaimed by critics and players, on the very popular platform.

experienced journalist Brian Crecente He met with developers from both studios following the game’s launch on the Epic Games Store and Steam, and spoke with Nixxes founder and senior director of development Jorjen Katsman and Insomniac Games’ director of core technology Mike Fitzgerald to discuss the challenges and challenges the teams faced while working on the game’s PC launch, including the introduction of new controls, custom leveling, and of course, support for a wide range of PC specs.

What challenges and difficulties did Nixxes face in bringing Marvel's Spider-Man Advance Edition to PC?

“Bringing the project to market certainly comes with its fair share of challenges,” said Jurjen Katsman, Nixxes founder and senior director of development. One of the recurring features is that Marvel’s Spider-Man Enhanced Edition has already been extensively ported to the PlayStation 5, taking full advantage of the device’s capabilities. Turning that into a game that can support a wide range of PCs, including those much less powerful than the PS5, while still being vulnerable to high-end PCs, was a lot of effort and fine-tuning.

As a foundation, we had to build a new DirectX 12 graphics rendering program and extend it using DXR ray tracing technology and adding many other features that allow players to customize the game to their preferences.

In some ways, the biggest challenge is trying to make sure we accommodate all the desires that PC gamers have. This includes supporting a wide variety of different display devices and input devices, as well as providing settings for visual preferences and performance preferences. To me, these are the beauty of PC gaming. But at the same time, they are challenging for us as a game studio.

The game also supports mouse and keyboard, so were there any specific challenges the team faced when translating the game's originally designed controls to a haptic feedback controller?

We wanted to make sure that traversing Marvel’s home of New York while playing as Spider-Man felt just as heroic using a mouse and keyboard as it did playing with a gamepad.

It wasn't easy and it took us a lot of time and a lot of iteration and reflection. Personally, I now prefer playing with the mouse over the gamepad because it allows me to quickly scan the scene and quickly turn around to jump to the next building.

This game was Nixxes' first project independently, as a subsidiary of PlayStation Studios, so did that change the process for the studio or make it smoother?

Our team has enjoyed partnering with Insomniac Games and working on this game. As a team, we had smooth and easy communication with Insomniac Games and everyone contributed to the work based on their expertise. We are excited to continue this partnership with Insomniac Games for the highly anticipated release of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales this fall.

I am absolutely convinced that joining PlayStation Studios has made this collaboration very easy and real, while for us as a studio, all the support from PlayStation Studios makes it very easy to focus all our attention on creating the best games possible.

The PC version of the game offers a wide range of graphical configuration options for the game. How did you start deciding what you wanted to offer in terms of graphical upgrades?

We try to provide a relatively large number! I think that's a big part of what makes PC gaming special, allowing each player to configure the game in their own way. Sometimes we might try to have lower settings to keep things simple.

Mostly, we found that it was worth showing players control over anything that could be used to balance CPU usage, GPU usage, or VFX quality. Even just before launch, we outlined more options to ensure players had sufficient scalability.

How do you think ray tracing reflections in particular affect the look of the game?

I think it fits the game incredibly well. Much of the game takes place on the streets of New York, a city filled with glass skyscrapers with a modern design that reflects the entire city around them. The view looks great without ray tracing, with cube-shaped maps being displayed throughout the city.

But real-time ray tracing can show reflections in greater detail, with all pedestrians and vehicles fully shadowed. The buildings around you are mirrored using a highly detailed, computer-specific engineering mode. This really makes the city look more realistic and lively.

How did Nixxes come up with the way the game seems to automatically adapt to different screen ratios?

Our philosophy is that a game should automatically look good regardless of the aspect ratio. For normal gameplay, it would usually work fine, and it definitely works for Marvel's Spider-Man gameplay.

But we went a step further and adjusted all movie scenes that are usually custom-made to use the entire screen in very wide aspect ratios like 21:9 and 32:9.

The game also has a special mode to support cinematic scenes up to 48:9, with a blur effect being used to keep the focus on the center of the scene. Creating all of these modes requires our team to review all of the cinematic views in the game and adjust the animations for these scenes to make them compatible with these wider aspect ratios. It’s a lot of work, but it pays off in the end!

What challenges did you encounter in bringing PlayStation DualSense support with adaptive catalytic feedback and haptic feedback to PC?

Bringing the same core feature wasn’t that difficult. All the tuning for the same touch and input has already been done on PS5. However, supporting this on a PC is still a challenge. Finally, the game supports all DualSense features when the controller is connected.

Unfortunately, full support for triggers, taps, and audio features wasn't possible over standard Bluetooth. But when you connect the console using USB-C, it offers a full experience, just like the PS5.

How does Insomniac feel knowing that this game will be released to a wider audience base?

Mike Fitzgerald, Director of Core Technology at Insomniac said: “We are incredibly excited and thrilled for new players to experience the enhanced edition of Marvel’s Spider-Man! As a game developer, you put a lot of the expertise you’ve spent years acquiring into your games.

So there’s little excitement beyond seeing a player get their hands on something you’ve built and making them feel so happy. It’s been great for us to feel that joy again from PC fans, and we’re grateful for the great work the Nixxes team has done to do the game justice on the platform.