Spider-Man 2 Debuts to ‘Mixed’ Steam Reviews Amid Serious PC Performance Problems

Spider-Man 2 on PC was shaping up to be surprisingly performant once its system requirements were revealed. However, the Nixxes-developed port has debuted to a ‘mixed’ Steam user review rating, with many players complaining about technical issues.

Currently, 55% of Spider-Man 2’s Steam reviews are positive. “Despite having a high-end GPU and running the latest Nvidia drivers (5.66.36), the game frequently crashes,” said one RTX 4090 user. Another read: “The game is completely unplayable on PC. The game crashes to desktop every five minutes. I have already requested a refund.”

“Hold off on buying until they get a couple of stabilization patches out because holy hell,” one reviewer added. “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 main issue appears to be that the game’s graphics controller crashes frequently, even with users on higher-end PCs. According to one reviewer, the error reads: “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 This can be caused by out of date drivers, using game settings higher than your GPU can handle, an overheating GPU, or an error with the game.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.”

Other users have complained that features like DLSS and ray tracing are not working properly, while others have mentioned long loading times, missing textures, and audio issues.

Several players alleged that performance can also stutter after several hours of gameplay, before leading to a hard crash. Some believe a memory leak could cause the problems.

Nixxes has responded to the reported crashes on the Steam forums, stating to one user: “Sorry to hear you are experiencing issues.

“Please 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.”

Additionally, Nixxes was made aware of other bugs that can occur during the photo-op missions in Spider-Man 2. “We are aware of a bug that can occur if your framerate is very low during this scene (below 20 FPS). As a workaround, try lowering your graphics settings and or resolution to pass this point.”

Sayem is a freelancer based in the UK, covering tech & hardware. You can get in touch with him at @sayem.zone on Bluesky.