Spider-Man Miles Morales: PC Edition - Swinging With Style
Sony just keeps bringing the PC love at the moment. With Uncharted, Sackboy and the original Spider-Man all landing on the platform within the last two months it has certainly been a great time for PC players looking to catch up on some of Sony’s greatest hits. Now it is Miles Morales’ turn to flex his muscles on Steam and see how he fares in the world of a Keyboard and Mouse.
For those that don’t know, Miles Morales is more of a spin-off than a true sequel to Spider-Man, along the lines of Uncharted: Lost Legacy. It was released as a launch title for the PS5 and was enjoyed by pretty much everyone that played it, despite its brief length. That all translates well to the PC, with very few issues to speak of on the porting side of things. The game looks fantastic on a good PC and there are a host of tweaks, especially in the realms of ray-tracing and DLSS, to play with to make sure you get the most out of the game on your rig. It is a much more complete port than Uncharted and it probably even outdoes the previous standard bearer for Sony ports, God of War, for options and tweakability.
One thing that really impressed me is just how well the game performed on a lower-spec system, aka my Steam Deck. The game automatically detected the Steam Deck and set it to the best possible settings so there were no issues with framerates or stutter and the game still manages to look great. It was an absolute blast playing this while on the road to a camping trip. I worried that the smaller screen might ruin the experience, but that worry was wasted. Is it as good as a killer PC? No of course not, but I tell you what, it is still pretty darn amazing to be able to play a game like this on a portable system.
The game itself is still the blast it was when it came out on Sony’s systems. Miles is ever-likeable and the cast of characters is filled in with some of the quirkier folks from the Spider-verse so it is quite the fresh experience. Swinging through New York is still a pure joy and the combat is as tight as it has ever been. That this is a good game hasn’t changed in the few years since its release, if anything it is easier to appreciate just how good it is away from the hype of a new console launch. Insomniac are really flexing in the Spider-verse and this spin-off is possibly their finest work, despite its short length.
If I have one issue, it is the same one I have with every Sony release on the PC and that is the price. Releasing these games at full price years after their initial release still really shows that Sony is determined to bleed every single cent out of these ports. It feels very exploitative, especially when Sony could have quite easily bundled Miles with the original Spider-Man as a package that would have made the high price much more palatable. Ideally these games need to be released on PC much closer to their original launch or be released at a cheaper price, anything else feels like corporate greed. But sadly, while these ports continue to sell as well as they are, I can’t see Sony’s policy changing no matter how rough it appears.
When all is said and done, Spider-Man: Miles Morales is a fantastic port of a fantastic game. It runs well on a range of systems, including the Steam Deck, and really captures the feel of this younger, less experienced web-slinger. If you have never played it before now is the perfect time, but if it were me, I would probably wait for a Steam Sale because at full price it feels a little bit of a steep cost for quite a short game. After revisiting both Spider-Man and now Miles Morales on PC it is my sincere hope that we get Spider-Man 2 on PC within a reasonable timeframe because it is a great place to be a friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
Spider-Man: Miles Morales was reviewed on PC with code kindly supplied by Playstation Australia
