Spider-Man PC has, for the most part, been a glorious, sandbox, superhero success. But despite the Marvel webslinger making massively good impressions since he moved from the PS4, this bug in Insomniac’s open-world game, which turns Peter Parker and Mary Jane into something out of a David Cronenberg body horror, is enough to give you nightmares.
During the cutscene where Mayor Norman Osborn is set to deliver his speech outside City Hall, to begin with, everything seems normal – the textures are sharp, the lighting is dynamic, the animations are smooth, very impressive for a game that apparently runs without a graphics card. But suddenly, without warning, the game stops still. It looks like a crash, and man, we wish it were, but things are about to get a lot worse.
The heads of the police officers disappear. Then, the MC who’s introducing Mayor Osborn vanishes completely, only to be replaced by a gigantic floating head that’s pointed upside down towards the camera, with a twitching, flickering kind of bloody neck stump looming large over the audience.
Peter and Mary Jane don’t seem to notice, and continue their mutterings as normal. That’s until all the textures on their clothes and faces transform into horrifying, shuddering RGB lights, and their teeth clip through their jaws. At that moment, the animation system seems to lose it completely, and everything starts speeding up, to the point our mild-mannered reporter and friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man looks as if he’s about to short circuit and explode. Captured by Twitter user Omar Samir, you can see the full glitchy episode in its horrendous glory below. “Something went wrong with my Spider-Man,” remarks Omar, stoically.
Somethin went wrong with my Spider-Man… pic.twitter.com/Ma1KiHFZ8R
— Omar Samir (@idredman) August 16, 2022
I think we can add this to the annals of great and horrible videogame glitches, alongside the Fallout: New Vegas Doc Mitchell head spin, and the gigantic goalkeeper from FIFA.
If you can find enough soap to wash your eyes of this terror, Spider-Man Remastered is actually a fantastic port, as noted in our review. Alternatively, if this breaks Spidey for you forever, and you can never trust him again, you should try something else from our lists of the best superhero games, or best sandbox games. They’re all great, but we can’t guarantee anything glitch-wise.