https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6Mkm_NGCX8
Spider-Man's web swinging in Batman: Arkham Knight's Gotham.
You don't build or configure anything yourself: Claude does it on your PC and explains each step. You need both games on Steam, a controller, and a PC that can run both games at once.
- Download the Claude desktop app from claude.ai/download, install it and sign in. (The part of Claude that can work on your PC, Claude Code, comes with Claude's paid plans.)
- Make an empty folder for the mod, for example a folder called ArkWeb in your Downloads.
- In the Claude app, open the Code tab, start a new session and choose that folder.
- Copy this message, paste it into Claude and send it:
Download https://github.com/luki-1/ArkWeb into this folder, then follow its AGENTS.md: set ArkWeb up for me and guide me through my first session. - Claude asks before it does anything on your PC. Allow its requests, and do what it asks you to do when it
asks. It will:
- check that both games are installed and that Spider-Man is version 4.0630, the only version ArkWeb works with
- install the free tools it needs to build the mod
- build the mod, ask you to close both games, install it, and back up your Arkham Knight save
- tell you which game settings to change
- walk you through your first session: what to load, where to stand, when to start moving, and the controls
To play again later, open the Claude app, start a new session in the Code tab with the same ArkWeb folder, and say "Let's play ArkWeb". While you play, just tell Claude what's wrong, like "I'm stuck in a building", "Spider-Man looks dark" or "I can see Batman". To remove the mod, say "Uninstall ArkWeb".
Spider-Man stuck inside a building? Just tell your AI agent to teleport you 200 m into the air.
For the agent: write the line hero tp 0 200 0 to logs\sm_cmd.txt (meters relative to Spider-Man; the second number is up). The guest DLL runs it within half a second and logs teleport ... held to logs\sm_guest.log.
Other AI agents that can work on your PC (Codex, Cursor and the like) can follow the same guide.
ArkWeb runs Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered alongside Batman: Arkham Knight. You play Spider-Man's own movement (swinging, wall running, wall crawling, point launches) with a controller while looking at Arkham Knight. Gotham's collision is streamed into Spider-Man's physics world, so he swings off and runs on Gotham's buildings. His own rendered frame is cut out and drawn into Arkham's view in Batman's place.
The architecture follows SkyCraft: a hidden guest game drives the moveset, and the host game shows it.
Status: experimental. It works end to end but is a research project with rough edges. See the known issues below.
| Part | What it does |
|---|---|
src/sm_guest/ → winmm.dll in Spider-Man |
Publishes the hero and camera, plays a virtual controller, fakes window focus, and builds Gotham's collision (Havok compressed meshes) about 2 km above New York so New York's own ledges are out of reach. It also patches the hero's transition manager for zip-to-point and perching, and captures Spider-Man's frame (D3D12) for the host. |
src/ak_host/ → dinput8.dll in Arkham Knight |
Drives Batman as a hidden puppet at Spider-Man's position, mimics Spider-Man's camera, and draws the captured frame (D3D11). It also scans Gotham with the game's own traces and exports its PhysX statics and grapple points. |
protocol/, src/common/ |
Shared-memory link (Local\ArkWeb_v1): seqlock state slots, rings and coordinate conversion (UE3 Z-up cm ↔ Spider-Man Y-up m) |
tools/gotham_stream.py |
The streamer. It follows the hero, asks Arkham for tile scans (50 m tiles) and PhysX exports, builds collision tiles and swing hints, and sends them to Spider-Man. |
tools/ (others) |
Reverse-engineering helpers (PE, RTTI, strings, disassembly, xrefs), offline fakes of either game, debugging viewers |
Zip to point uses Arkham's grapple points as targets (L2 + R2, with a marker drawn in Arkham's view). With nothing pressed, Spider-Man perches on the point. A jumps or launches off; B drops.
When Arkham says Batman is fighting (its own IsInCombat check), the mod hands the fight to Arkham Knight
automatically, and hands it back two seconds after the fight ends:
- Arkham plays Batman with its own freeflow combat, controller and combat camera. Batman stays hidden.
- Spider-Man is pinned to Batman's position and takes Batman's pose every frame. His joints are turned to match Batman's skeleton: hips, spine, shoulders, arms, legs and feet, scaled to his proportions.
- Spider-Man's camera copies Arkham's, so the captured Spider-Man lines up with Arkham's picture.
Spider-Man's joint hierarchy isn't stored anywhere the mod could find, so it was worked out from recorded motion
(tools/sm_pose_sampler.py, tools/sm_skel_probe.py, tools/ak_skel_probe.py). tools/retarget_v2.py is the
same pose transfer in Python, for checking it offline.
- Windows 10 x64 and a PC that can run both games at once
- Marvel's Spider-Man Remastered v4.0630 (Steam). Everything is bound to that build's addresses; other builds refuse to hook.
- Batman: Arkham Knight (Steam)
- An Xbox-style controller
- Visual Studio 2019 Build Tools (x64 C++) and the Windows 10 SDK (for
fxc) - Python 3.12 with
numpy,scipy,numba,pefileandcapstone(for the streamer and tools)
- Edit the game paths in
install.batanduninstall.bat. - Run
build.bat. It builds both DLLs and the link test intobin\, at low priority on one core. - Close both games, then run
install.bat.uninstall.batremoves the DLLs again.
arkweb.ini next to either DLL can override [ArkWeb] LogDir= and a few switches (see PHASE1.md).
Logs go to logs\.
Pro Tip: Just tell your AI agent to do it for you
For the agent: AGENTS.md walks you through checking the setup, building, installing, and guiding the player.
- Start both games and load into the open world in each. Keep Arkham Knight in front.
- Stand still with Spider-Man, then start the streamer:
cd toolsandpython gotham_stream.py. It waits for both games, builds the area around you and lifts Spider-Man onto Gotham. - Play with the controller. If you restart the streamer while still in game, use
--resume.
Your Arkham Knight save follows Batman. Arkham autosaves while Batman is the puppet, so don't leave
Spider-Man under the map. The host refuses to move Batman far below the streets, and tp x y z (feet, UU)
in logs\ak_cmd.txt moves Batman back to a safe spot.
Write one command per line to logs\sm_cmd.txt (Spider-Man) or logs\ak_cmd.txt (Arkham Knight). Results
go to logs\sm_guest.log and logs\ak_host.log.
| Game | Examples |
|---|---|
| Spider-Man | hero tp 0 200 0, zip status, zip perch on|off, gotham stream status, gotham surface <hex>, cap status |
| Arkham Knight | tp x y z, batman hide|show|auto, overlay on|off, overlay gamma <g>, shot, cam mimic on|off, px info |
- Arkham's building collision is often hollow, and Gotham comes from vertical scans plus PhysX. Thin spires and very narrow buildings can still be swung through.
- Swinging very fast into a district Arkham hasn't loaded yet can leave gaps for a few seconds, until it loads and the tile is rescanned.
- A zip whose path is blocked is cut short and Spider-Man drops (there's no line-of-sight check yet).
- Spider-Man can look dark in places (his lighting comes from New York's time of day).
- In combat, hands and wrists aren't copied (no fists), and the camera cuts at the start and end of a fight.
- The combat pose transfer is tied to the suit it was recorded with. A suit with a different skeleton is detected (bone lengths are checked) and the mirror stays off.
- Do not run
bin\link_test.exewhile the games are running. It opens the live shared memory.
| Path | Contents |
|---|---|
src/, protocol/ |
The two DLLs and the shared link |
tools/ |
The streamer and reverse-engineering scripts (tools/README.md) |
tests/ |
Offline link test |
recon/PHASE0*.md, PHASE1.md, PHASE2.md |
Findings and phase notes, with addresses |
recon_dll/ |
The passive recon probes used at the start |
Not included: logs/, build output, and the raw dumps of the game executables (strings, RTTI, the UE3
SDK, disassembly). The scripts in tools/ regenerate those from your own copies of the games.
An unofficial fan project, not affiliated with Insomniac Games, Nixxes, Sony Interactive Entertainment, Rocksteady Studios or Warner Bros. Games. It contains no game files; you need your own copies of both games.