Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 Developer Committed to Always-on Ray Tracing Earlier This Year

Whether it’s the seamless loading times or the performance, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has impressed many on a technical level. However, perhaps the most impressive feature is ray tracing always being on, regardless of the mode players choose. Whether it’s 30 FPS, 40 FPS or 60 FPS, ray tracing will be enabled, which is all the more impressive since very few games (if any) have achieved the same.

As it turns out, developer Insomniac Games committed to this only earlier this year. Speaking to Digital Foundry, director of core technology Mike Fitzgerald said, “It has always pained me whenever I see a screenshot of the first couple of Spider-Man games, or if I see Clank with ray tracing turned off. And I always know immediately, when I see that screenshot, and it always bums me out. And so it was always an aspiration for this one: wouldn’t it be great if we didn’t have to have that real big compromise in there if we got back to a pure performance and resolution trade-off?

“And I don’t think we committed to it until earlier this year, but I think basically, we saw the way performance was trending, and we said, ‘You know, it’ll be work, but let’s go for it’. I feel like we got there with the last games, but we always got there, like, a week after launch. Or, right at the deadline, and we’re never quite confident enough. And so this time, it just took a bit of ‘No, we’re gonna do it, and we can get to where it needs to be.’”

Check out our graphical analysis for Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 to learn why it looks so good. The open-world superhero title is available for PS5 and has sold over 2.5 million copies in its first day, becoming the fastest-selling first-party PlayStation title. You can also check out our review, where we awarded it a 9 out of 10, for our thoughts on why it’s so good.