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An Insomniac Games developer has chimed in on recent internet chatter to confirm that there aren’t any hidden load times when fast traveling in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.
One recent clip that went viral on Twitter - see below - shows off the near-instant fast travel feature available in the superhero sequel. “The fact that you can travel to any location, even the opposite corner of the map, with zero loading is absolutely mind-boggling,” the clip’s poster said. But a small icon that pops up left some wondering if there were any hidden load times during fast travel.
Another look at Spider-Man 2's insane fast-travel system.The fact that you can travel to any location, even the opposite corner of the map, with ZERO loading is absolutely mind-boggling.Definitely the most seamless fast-travel system I've seen.pic.twitter.com/StOVtFgFklOctober 16, 2023
“Could you please patch the ability to either reduce or remove the pseudo-loading animation when using fast travel?” one fan asked on ResetEra. Another responded with “Who cares? 3 to 5 second loads are amazing.” Hear hear - three-second loads are genuinely impressive, but that’s apparently not what’s happening in Spider-Man 2.
Insomniac’s director of core technologies, Mike Fitzgerald, jumped onto the thread to say “That’s a hold-to-confirm button,” not a hidden loading bar. “If anyone wants to check,” he continued, “they can look at how late it’s possible to cancel it out when they’re playing.”
Fitzgerald continues: “Last month I brought up whether we should remove the hold-to-confirm, mostly to address that accusation we were seeing. But it was correctly pointed out to me that having a confirmation window was important for player usability, which at the end of the day is far more important than Internet cred points (even though we love our Internet cred points).”
In fairness to the internet speculators, Spider-Man 2’s load times do look too quick to be true, but it seems some technical magic beyond my comprehension does make it possible. On his Twitter account, Fitzgerald mused about the importance of his department. “Tech talk often comes down to numbers: frame rates, loading times, etc,” he said. “But if we do it right, our tech is more than that. It takes part in the storytelling, helping give players experiences they've never had and moments they'll never forget.”
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 swings into action later this week on October 20th and, despite the quick load times, some players would rather just web-sling around the city.
