Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered landed on Steam, bringing one of PlayStation’s fan-favorite games to a new audience. Since the game also got Steam Deck verified on day one, I thought it would be fun to check out how well it performs on the powerful handheld. Let’s jump in!
Marvel’s Spider-Man
Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered is the best version of Insomniac Games’ original Marvel’s Spider-Man. The Remastered version already was playable on the PlayStation 5, adding tons of details and way better gameplay compared to the original. If you want to learn more about the game, you can read our review here. Since the PC ports is based on this version, you can expect the same intense story, the same satisfying open world, and all of the amazing upgrades to your suit.
Compared to the original game, the Remastered version added a lot of visual upgrades to make the game even look better. On PC, this is of course the number one reason to get this version if you own both a gaming PC and PlayStation 5. But when it comes to the Steam Deck version, you can’t really go all out in the visual department. On Steam Deck, the experience comes closer to the original PlayStation 4 game but that’s nothing to worry about since it’s still pretty unbelievable.
Spider-Man on the go
When I started playing this game on my Steam Deck, I was immediately blown away by the quality of the graphics. It’s very close to what I’ve played on PlayStation 4 but even on the Steam Deck, I could still notice some visual upgrades that are typical for the Remastered version. The open scene sets the tone and demonstrates the raw power of the device. Once I got past the more story-driven prologue, I could swing around freely in the city before activating my next mission. It’s here where I really enjoyed the portable version. The game runs extremely smoothly and tries to cap the frame rate at as steady as possible, depending on what your pre-sets are. If you play it with regular pre-sets, it will be around 30fps with some dips during intense combat. Set them to medium and you’ll hit between 30-45 fps without losing a lot of the visual details. If you don’t really care about the best visuals but want the smoothest experience, you can even select a minimum mode where you’re running the game at a constant 60fps but with a lot of details left out visually speaking. Since I like to keep things in the middle, I went for the medium settings which still gave me a gorgeous portable game that still managed to reach decent fps.
But, like always, if you want to play the best-looking version with all its ray-tracing madness, be advised that the Steam Deck version simply isn’t able to pull this off. Instead, the Steam Deck version offers you a way of playing this amazing game on a portable device without having to cut any of the actual game. Sure, it’s not the best-looking version of the game but it doesn’t really matter on the smaller screen of the handheld. Due to the screen’s native resolution you won’t really care for the ‘lesser’ visuals, it’s still amazing to play this in the palm of your hands and it’s one of those games that’s made for portable gaming. Swinging around in the city to kill some time waiting is one of the best things to do when you carry around your Steam Deck. Keep in mind however that you’re playing one of the more demanding games on the platform so the battery life isn’t that long, if you want to play it on the go, you better carry around an extra battery pack with you as well.
Conclusion:
It’s amazing to play a game like Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered on the go and it works surprisingly well on Steam Deck. You won’t get all the flashy visual upgrades but you will get a game that runs and plays smoothly on the go. One of the best games in the portable library for sure!
9/10
Tested on Steam Deck
