Spider-Man: Far From Home is a free PSVR romp we want turned into a real game

With Spider-Man: Far From Home swinging into movie theatres on July 2nd, Sony has released a tie-in game that’s completely free to download and play right now. The only caveat? It’s a PlayStation VR exclusive.

Developed by Sony Pictures Virtual Reality, Far From Home is accurately described as a “VR Experience” instead of a full fat video game adaptation of the upcoming Marvel film. That said, it offers a bit more substance than the studio’s previous Homecoming companion.

It’s less than a couple of gigabytes to download and thrusts you into the action immediately. Of course, this wouldn’t be a VR superhero game without prompting the player to pick up and put some kind of mask or cowl over their face to get things started.

Where Homecoming was a fun yet throwaway selection of mini-games followed by a brief chase scene, Far From Home isn’t anywhere near as limited. In fact, as Spider-Man, you’re given a large chunk of Manhattan to explore freely or via the game’s story mode.

The highlight here is being able to zip through New York as if you were the webslinger himself. Using a pair of PlayStation Move controllers you can aim at surfaces then yank downwards to pull yourself along – it doesn’t take long for you to ease into the rhythm.

You can also walk, run, and climb, allowing you fully explore this urban playground in a way that feels genuinely intuitive. Of course, being a free to play accompaniment to the movie, Far From Home has some rough edges and there’s an unsurprising lack of polish when compared to VR games like Sony’s Blood & TruthFarpoint and certainly when held up against Insomniac’s fantastic Spider-Man game from last year.

Environments and character models are fairly basic, but there’s an impressive amount of detail to be found in Peter Parker’s bedroom, which also doubles up as the menu/hub area. Created in collaboration with Sony Pictures, it faithfully portrays Spider-Man as he’s seen in the recent Marvel movies, Tom Holland lending his voice alongside Jacob Batalon (who plays Ned).

After learning the ropes, you’ll go toe to toe with a giant mech stomping its way through New York. Queue a fairly straightforward boss battle that, while a bit tedious, lets you show off you web slinging skills in a combat scenario.

Sadly – unless he’s tucked away as some kind of bonus – there’s no sign of Mysterio. While it would have been cool to battle Spidey’s fishbowl-headed foe, we can’t really complain. The robot fight is the only real set piece here, but Far From Home has a couple of convincing reasons for you to delve into its free play mode, tasking you with time trials and a collectible hunts.

It’s a fun though expectedly short foray into the Marvel universe that will last you anywhere between fifteen minutes and an hour. With more and more PlayStation VR headsets out in the wild, that hopefully means more people will plug into this compared to Sony’s Homecoming tie-in.

It’s definitely a pipe dream, but after playing it, Far From Home has us convinced that a proper Spider-Man game in virtual reality could work really well.

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Senior Editor bursting with lukewarm takes and useless gaming trivia. May as well surgically attach my DualSense at this point.