Since the beginning of this generation, Insomniac games is one of Sony’s strongest in-house developers. Having delivered four games to PS5 so far, the California-based company has been busy – but despite this, the studio has constantly looked to improve its technology and support new features. After all, Insomniac was one of the first to adopt 40fps output for 120Hz displays and one of the first to go fully into ray tracing (RT) when the PS5 launched. What I didn’t expect, however, was Insomniac going back and updating each of its PS5 titles to properly support the new PlayStation 5 Pro. That’s exactly what they did, so we’ll outline these changes starting with their most recent version: Marvel’s Spider-Man 2.

The bottom line is simple: Insomniac implemented Sony’s new PSSR upscaling feature in addition to offering additional RT options that weren’t available on the base system. Combine that with the different frame rate options and you have a wide range of choices on the Pro, including new performance and fidelity graphics modes that work differently than the base machine.

For starters, Insomniac’s excellent Temporal Injection has been replaced by PSSR. Internal resolution measurements are comparable, for example with performance mode at ~1440p internally, but PSSR can resolve much more detail. This also applies to fidelity mode, which has an internal resolution close to 4K and a much sharper and more stable image with integrated PSSR. However, those who sit closer to larger TVs will notice the difference more easily than those with smaller TVs and higher average viewing distances.

There are other factors here as well – these resolution numbers are for the default 30fps and 60fps modes, but if you have a 120Hz display with VRR you have access to additional options. As with the base PS5 version, there is a 40fps mode and uncapped options for both modes. What I found is that this can influence the average resolution numbers slightly, but with the PSSR the difference here is less noticeable than with the base PS5. The other RT settings, when combined with the uncapped fidelity mode, may exert a slightly stronger influence on dynamic resolution, but it is largely negligible.

I’ll get into the performance numbers later, but first let’s address this: What kind of changes exist between performance pro and fidelity pro modes? We know that additional RT features are available, but what else is changing?

The answer is surprisingly comprehensive. First, things like drawing distance, distant reflections, increased nearby detail, and extra lights are all present here. Traffic lights become more detailed from a distance, as do trees and buildings, and you can even see reflections of buildings on the map. The actual RT features are harder to show, but luckily the game lets you switch between the two modes without restarting the game to see how a scene changes between modes.

The first RT feature is called RT key light shadows, which refer to the distant shadows cast by buildings and other large structures. Doing this at scale is not easy, however, but RT allows for distant shadows that would otherwise not be shown. You can see the shadows between buildings if you look closely, which makes the world less flat overall. If you use loyalty mode, I recommend enabling it.

Next up is RT Reflections and Interiors. There is now a “high” option which essentially renders them at full resolution, i.e. matching the current resolution of the main scene rendering. This means that the two reflections themselves show more details as well as interior spaces. I still like the trick behind these interiors: they are a series of parts present under the board so that the system can provide proper RT results. That said, while the new high setting makes a difference, it doesn’t actually increase the detail of what’s contained in the game’s BVH structure. This means you’ll still see lower resolution textures and simplified objects reflected in glass, something you could overcome in the PC versions of previous Spider-Man games, but is unfortunately banned here.

Finally, we have RTAO (ray-traced ambient occlusion). This is a very subtle feature, but adds more precise contact shadows to the scene. This is visible from the title screen below Spider-Man’s wrist, if you want a quick comparison. The high setting also adds a screen space GI component which is also quite subtle, but can color buildings with the orange glow of the sunset or the blue glow of a sign for example. Again, I suggest using this option if you are in fidelity mode to push the graphics as far as possible.

Taken together, these new features add a nice depth to the overall presentation and Fidelity Mode ends up being even better. That said, it can be difficult to identify these effects at a glance, as the game’s graphics were not designed with this in mind, which lessens its impact somewhat.

The big question is which mode is best for you? This is where performance comes in, with fidelity mode capped at 30fps on a 60Hz display, with 40fps and uncapped options with a 120Hz VRR display. Both 30fps and 40fps modes seem lock onto their respective targets, but uncapped mode often seems to run in the 50s, which works well with VRR. All this is achieved with excellent image quality and all RT features enabled. Disabling these features has minimal impact on performance, suggesting that the game is bottlenecked elsewhere in this mode.

Now, if you crave a higher frame rate, Performance Pro mode will give you that. RT is enabled but this is limited to the standard RT features present in the original version of the game. It runs at a stable 60 frames per second, but you are also free to remove the cap of a VRR screen. Our tests showed results between 60fps and 70fps, so it’s slightly improved but not by a huge margin. Therefore, my suggestion would be to use pro fidelity mode on a 120Hz VRR display, or performance mode if you have a 60Hz display.

In addition to Spider-Man 2, Insomniac has chosen to update all of its PS5 games, and there are similar options on these earlier versions. Taking Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart as an example, there are pro fidelity and pro performance modes, which work almost the same way – but the key light shadow option from Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 doesn’t make an appearance in this former gaming. Interestingly, performance here is also higher, with pro fidelity mode averaging between 50fps and 60fps – an incredible result, especially with those on VRR displays to smooth out frame rate fluctuations. ‘pictures. Performance mode also benefits with figures much higher on average than Spider-Man 2.

I haven’t had a chance to check out the early Spider-Man games, mind you, but I assume they use the same options as Ratchet and benefit from them in the same way.

So the key takeaway is pretty simple: the new Pro-specific features aren’t mind-blowing, but they’re certainly welcome and transform already beautiful games into something even more impressive.

But more than anything, I want these games to serve as an example to other developers when it comes to implementing technical features for users. These are games aimed at the mass market, but Insomniac is still committed to including things like 40fps modes or fully embracing 120Hz and VRR on top of its excellent RT work. It’s a great example of what a console game can be: lots of options and all of them are good to varying degrees.