Spider-Man 2 Launches with Mixed Steam Reviews Due to PC Issues

The much-anticipated release of Spider-Man 2 on PC, developed by Nixxes, has garnered a 'mixed' rating on Steam, with only 55% of user reviews being positive. Many players have reported significant technical difficulties, overshadowing the initially promising system requirements that suggested a smooth performance.

One user with a high-end RTX 4090 GPU, running the latest Nvidia drivers (5.66.36), expressed frustration, stating, "Despite having a high-end GPU and running the latest Nvidia drivers (5.66.36), the game frequently crashes." Another echoed this sentiment, saying, "The game is completely unplayable on PC. The game crashes to desktop every five minutes. I have already requested a refund."

A particularly scathing review advised potential buyers to "hold off on buying until they get a couple of stabilization patches out because holy hell. To say this is 'rough' is an understatement. Lighting doesn't load in some cutscenes, those same scenes run at seconds-per-frame, audio desync issues up the wazoo, freezing, stuttering, and just about every other performance issue I can think of. I'm gonna get a refund for now because frankly, there's other stuff I could use $70 for right now."

The primary issue seems to be frequent crashes of the game's graphics controller, even among users with high-end PCs. One error message reported states, "A problem has occurred with your display driver. This can be caused by out of date drivers, using game settings higher than your GPU can handle, an overheating GPU, or an error with the game. Please try updating your graphics drivers, or lowering your in-game settings."

Additional complaints include malfunctioning features like DLSS and ray tracing, as well as long loading times, missing textures, and audio issues. Some players have reported performance stuttering after several hours of gameplay, leading to hard crashes, with suspicions pointing toward a potential memory leak.

In response, Nixxes has addressed the crash issues on the Steam forums, advising affected users to "refer to the troubleshooting guides on the Nixxes Support website and contact us if the problem persists. Make sure to include your logs and crash dumps as outlined on the support website, so we can troubleshoot as quickly as possible."

Nixxes has also acknowledged a specific bug occurring during photo-op missions in Spider-Man 2 when framerates drop below 20 FPS, suggesting players "try lowering your graphics settings and or resolution to pass this point" as a temporary workaround.