Hey everyone!

I wanted to share a problem I found while playing Marvel's Spider-Man 2 on PC with an AMD RX 590 8GB.

The problem

The Symbiote tendrils are completely invisible during gameplay.

This affects both:

• Harry's symbiote tendrils
• Peter's Symbiote/Anti-Venom attacks

The animations still play normally, and in some situations I can actually see the shadows of the invisible tendrils, even though the tendril geometry itself is missing.

So it looks like the game is rendering the tendrils for some parts of the rendering pipeline, but the actual geometry isn't being displayed correctly.

Here is an example of the problem:

[Attach screenshot/video of the invisible tendrils here]

My hardware

• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 590 8GB
• Architecture: Polaris
• Driver: AMD Adrenalin 26.5.2
• Platform: PC

I initially thought this might be related to FSR/IGTI, shaders, or the GPU driver, but I found something much more interesting.

I found a workaround!

After installing mods that replace/add tendril assets, the tendrils become visible again.

The first mod I tested was:

Matte Classic Black Suit (Tendrils Update)
Nexus Mods — Matte Classic Black Suit (Tendrils Update)

The mod's changelog specifically mentions that Matte Tendrils were added and later made modular.

The second mod is:

Antivenom Matte Tendrils
Nexus Mods — Antivenom Matte Tendrils

This one is particularly interesting because its author specifically mentions fixing invisible tendrils on Polaris GPUs such as the RX 400 and RX 500 series.

Before / After

Without the workaround:
❌ Symbiote tendrils invisible

With the tendril mod:
✅ Tendrils render normally

I tested this myself on an RX 590 8GB, and the difference is immediately visible.

[Attach your first screenshot here — invisible tendrils]

[Attach your second screenshot here — visible tendrils]

What I think is happening

I don't know exactly which asset/shader/material is responsible yet, so I don't want to claim that the original game is simply "missing a mesh."

However, the fact that:

1. The issue occurs on a Polaris GPU;
2. Both Harry and Peter are affected;
3. The tendril animations still work;
4. Shadows can still be rendered even when the tendrils themselves are invisible;
5. Replacing/adding tendril assets makes them appear again;

strongly suggests that this is a Polaris-specific rendering/asset compatibility issue rather than a defective GPU.

If you have an RX 580, RX 590, or another Polaris GPU, I'd be very interested to know if you experience the same problem.

Please test the workaround and let me know if it fixes your tendrils!

Hopefully this can also help Nixxes identify and fix the underlying issue in a future patch.