Today we celebrate the release of Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PC! Like the PC version of Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered that was released earlier this year, this is a close collaboration with Insomniac Games, Marvel Games, and PlayStation. We’re excited to bring the adventures of Miles Morales to new audiences and let PC players experience the rise of Miles as the new Spider-Man.
Configuration and customization are important aspects of PC gaming. At Nixxes, we want to make sure the game is enjoyable on a variety of systems, from handhelds to high-end gaming PCs with the latest GPUs and ultra-wide screens. Part of that is making sure that Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales is playable with multiple input options. You can play with a controller, and there are plenty of options to choose from. You can use the DualSense controller for PS5 with a wired USB connection to enjoy the full DualSense controller experience, including adaptive trigger feedback and haptic feedback. The game also supports many other peripherals and loads of remapping options with Steam Input. The game is also fully playable with a mouse and keyboard, and an important part of the development was creating a default control scheme that made players feel like they had complete control while surfing the web. at high speed or engage in spectacular battles against enemies with Miles’ electric energy.
To give you more insight into how to implement mouse and keyboard controls in Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, I’d like to introduce you to Bart Veldstra, Senior Systems Programmer at Nixxes.
“When we started researching mouse and keyboard controls, we first looked at comparable titles and our own past projects. These games also happen to include third-person action-adventure games, so they give us a good idea of what we’ve tried and tested. We then make a list of all the actions a player can take in the game, which ones happen the most, and what combinations are possible.”
Next is the one-to-one mapping. “We simply assign all the buttons from the gamepad to a key or button on the keyboard and mouse. For this first layout, we used key combinations commonly found in games, such as the WASD keys for movement and the E and F keys for actions or attacks.”
The team then started playing around with this base map, to see where there were any potential problems, Bart explains: “One of the first sticking points is that you need to press two buttons to do it. perform the Finish action. On a gamepad it’s easy and gamers are used to it. On the keyboard, a pretty complicated instrument, that doesn’t make much sense.”
“Based on that experience, we decided to create dedicated keyboard links for actions that use two buttons on the gamepad, like Finishers, Web Attack, Drag & Throw, and Throw to Score. This makes it easier to perform these relatively complex actions.”
“The sheer number of keys on the keyboard makes this possible, but it’s important to keep a balance in terms of adding extra keys,” says Bart: “Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales introduces five abilities to Miles. If we add them as new key bindings on top of existing actions, we run the risk of the player having to reach farther to press the buttons. We took a step back to see what Miles could do. They are modifiers for your standard abilities, so we decided to set their trigger as modifiers on the right mouse button. When you hold down the right mouse button and press the key to perform an action like punch or jump, you activate the variation. This way we don’t overload players with extra keys.”
It’s not always easy to find a one-size-fits-all approach when working on mouse and keyboard layouts. The large number of abilities and actions that players have in both Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, proved a challenge, Bart said: “We’ve been juggling with action, for example. Dodge motion. That is mapped to the Control key, but how well it works depends on how big your hand is. We decided to keep this binding but also add an alternative binding to the mouse button. If you have a gaming mouse with extra buttons, having Dodge on the side button works great.”
The goal of the default key mapping is to make the most prominent game features the most effective. With configurable key mapping, you can play Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales any way you want. Bart: “We want to make sure people don’t have to fidget with their fingers while playing with the keyboard and mouse, but you can close any key you want. If you have a fancy mouse with lots of buttons, you can play the whole game with just your mouse.”
As mentioned, configurability and customization are important aspects of PC gaming, so in addition to the many input options, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales features a graphically rich menu with plenty of options. customization features, presets and quality levels to choose from, including options for ray tracing reflections and ray tracing shadows, as well as the latest performance-enhancing enhancement technologies, such as like NVIDIA DLSS 3. Check out our previous blog For more details.
We can’t wait to hear about your experience playing Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales on PC, and we look forward to seeing more of your amazing creations in Photo Mode. Remember to share them with the hashtag #MilesMoralesPC so we don’t miss them!
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales for PC is now available on Steam and in Epic game store.
Link your Steam Account to the PlayStation Network to get Early Access to the 2099 Miles Morales Suit and two Skill Points. The portal can be found on the game menu Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales.
