Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is going to be an adventure like no other. Insomniac Games established this playground for interactive anarchy nearly 20 years ago. Now, the studio is beginning the arduous process of dismantling it at the seams, setting the stage for a scale-jumping tour that would not have been possible on any previous generation of PlayStation hardware. For new and old players, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will be an exclusive PS5 that you won’t want to miss in 2021.
“The premise is that our longtime heroes are confronted by an evil archenemy who wields a dimensional tunneling device known as the Dimensioner. As is often the case in this type of scenario, it damages the fabric of space-time and our heroes will need to use an arsenal evolving creative firepower to try to save the universe, “says Marcus Smith, creative director at Insomniac. “We don’t want to reveal much, but the players’ jaws will fall to the ground when they find out it was the butler … shoot, I said too much.”
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Key Information
(Image credit: Insomniac Games)
games Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
Developer Insomniac Games
Editor Sony Interactive Entertainment
Platforms PS5
Launch 2021
If you don’t already own a PS5, you’ll want to have a DualSense controller in your hands when Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart launches in 2021. The game will take two areas of expertise from Insomniac and elevate them to the next generation: the trend of Insomniac for forging outrageous weapons and their ability to provide the best movement mechanics in the class. You would have seen these proficiencies in action in your impressively diverse catalog, from the Resistance trilogy to Sunset Overdrive, Marvel’s Spider-Man and his 2016 rereading of Ratchet & Clank’s first adventure – but Rift Apart is operating on another level entirely.
“Since Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was built from the ground up for the PS5, we have access to the widest range of techniques and the greatest fidelity we’ve ever had to develop weapons,” says game director Mike Daly. “You can expect some new developments that make the weapon’s impact look absolutely incredible: custom adaptive triggers for each weapon that add new functions to the trigger trigger, advanced VFX that takes the visual spectacle to the top, tactile to give all impacts physical and unique sensations that allow weapons to express their personality, and our unique creativity for exotic and unexpected weapon concepts is in full swing. The weapon experience is becoming incredible. “
While many of the fan favorite gadgets from Ratchet & Clank’s previous arsenal return, it’s the new weapons that are stealing the spotlight. There is Shatterbomb, an implantable concussive that appears to be an update to the Fusion grenade. The Topiary Sprinkler, a variant of Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando’s Miniturret Glove, fires beams of ice to freeze enemies in place as vines sprout around the crowd control device to shatter the invading Thugs-4-Less forces. Then there’s the new Burst Pistol and Enforcer Shotgun, two weapons set to take full advantage of the PS5’s unique capabilities.
“Weapons are always at the forefront of the Ratchet experience, and DualSense offers us powerful new tools to take each weapon’s unique personality even further”
Mike Daly, game director
“Weapons are always at the forefront of the Ratchet experience, and DualSense offers us powerful new tools to take each weapon’s unique personality even further,” said Daly. “We combine the tactile feel with the controller’s speaker to make the physical aspect of a gun’s shot look distinctly textured and believable. The controller’s expressiveness is very valuable here, as all of our weapons look and are very different each other, so it wouldn’t be as convincing if they all had a similar basic bang. “
This is an area of design that Insomniac has experienced in the past with great success. In Sunset Overdrive, the studio used the Impulse Triggers on the Xbox One controller to ensure that each weapon had a different noise cadence when firing. In Marvel Spider-Man: Miles Morales, a dimensionality of feedback was introduced through DualSense Adaptive Triggers so that you could feel the spider-like sensation of Miles rippling through your index fingers, as well as different degrees of tension correlated with how difficult to connect a web swing can be at any given time.
Daly says the studio is building on that experience while designing the weapons for the Rift Apart. “Adaptive triggers not only provide us with another channel to make weapons look unique, but in some cases they allow extra functionality. Partially squeezing the trigger or fogging it up gives us a way to add nuances to the functions of weapons that were not possible before as the trigger itself could not provide feedback. Our Burst pistol, for example, can be fired with precision by pulling the trigger to a medium limit or you can pull to do everything at the cost of accuracy. It’s much more intuitive to have this secondary function directly on the trigger than making players learn different buttons for it. It’s much easier for you to get into the flow of combat and execute advanced strategies without having to think about the controls. “
An intergalactic adventure
Insomniac is taking advantage of the PS5 to build a truly intergalactic adventure. The SSD will be used to project players between new worlds (and new versions of old favorites, as we could glimpse Ardolis, Sargasso and Torren IV in the trailers) at almost instant speeds without noticeable loading screens, and to give you new ways to cross your spaces combat and encounters. Daly believes that it is this peculiarity of the design of Rift Apart, working in conjunction with the fluctuating chaos for which the Ratchet & Clank series is known, that will set it apart from anything else the studio has created in the past.
“New skills expand how Ratchet can traverse dimensions using Rift Tethers and combine with a set of tried and true return moves to create a set of moves that looks powerful and expressive,” he says of his ability to whip in instant combat spaces. through dimensional portals that fill the combat spaces. “Ratchet’s central movement is faster and more agile, with faster and smoother transitions from movement to movement, making Ratchet more agile than ever. Our set of crossing movements allows us to create crossing challenges that make you mix movements in one satisfactory chain, and allows players to be more creative in the way they move on the battlefield to overcome enemies. “
Rift Apart is being built as a celebration of the Ratchet & Clank games that came before it. But it is also a glimpse into Insomniac’s future, following its acquisition by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Smith says the studio is trying to cater to more players than ever before, noting that if you’ve never played a Ratchet & Clank game before, this is an excellent game to start with, as the adventure is a standalone storyline. Still, longtime fans of the series will find deeper layers of connection with previous games. “
Insomniac assures us that what we’ve seen from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart so far is just a hint of the chaos that this action and platform game will offer. “Insomniac is so out of control that several of our designers are wanted in various star clusters,” laughs Smith. “It has been an incredibly rewarding process of learning to abandon the outdated ‘best practices’ that are in place due to load time restrictions. While so often the new hardware feels like an update to just the visuals, working on the PS5 has been a paradigm shift in the way we do everything, from almost instantaneous level loading to 3D audio design and, yes, a huge leap in the visual. It’s exciting to think that we’re still so early in the life cycle and that everyone’s just starting to surface than can be done. So excited to know that it will only get crazier! “
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is one of the most anticipated games of the year, scheduled to arrive in 2021 exclusively for the PS5. To learn more about the biggest launches in the near future, check out our Big coverage hub in 2021 as it is updated throughout January.