Update: Turns out this is actually an intentional Easter egg from Insomniac, not a trick to lower the rendering load. The models are parodying the boat people models from Spider-Man 2 on the PS1, which were also notoriously terrible. This is actually pretty clever. Good game Insomniac! As long as they don’t try to parody the emo Peter Parker from Sam Raimi’s third Spider-Man movie, I think we’ll be okay.
Original: Games are complicated creatures. There are often a number interesting behind-the-scenes tricks that developers use to make everything work. Sometimes, playing against the developers intentions can reveal these tricks. That’s exactly what happened with the Marvel’s Spider-Man PS4 boat people, the terrifying polygonal mannequins who pilot the boats in New York City’s waters. Players love photo mode, but it’s a risky proposition for developers as fans get to scrutinize the smallest details of their worlds. There are fun Easter eggs hidden there, like the Sable rockets that say “Guaranteed to Kill Spiders” on the side in fine print, and there are also horrifying creatures of nightmare hiding just beyond the water’s edge.
Spider-Man doesn’t exactly perform well in water, so Insomniac didn’t think that players would hurl themselves into the bay. The boats out there aren’t even physical objects. Spidey just passes through them. They are meant to to be visual flavor on the fringes of the city,...