Break on through to the other side.
Despite the few titles released solely on the PlayStation 5 thus far, very few of them feel suited to use the hardware in ways it just wasn’t previously possible on the PlayStation 4 or the mid-console refresh in the PlayStation 4 Pro. With the likes of God of War: Ragnarok and Horizon: Forbidden West to release on both platforms in the future, games like Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and Demon’s Souls currently only exist on this brand new hardware. However, unlike Demon’s Souls, this latest entry featuring the titular Ratchet and Clank is an adventure that showcases the hardware’s lightning-fast SSD in regards to its gameplay, a game that while is designed as being another safe bet by Sony, is a masterful journey that impresses at every turn.
Including every release, Rift Apart is shockingly the 16th entry in the series, which made its debut on the Playstation 2 way back in 2002. Now sure, this includes spin-offs, mobile releases, and the 2016 remake, but regardless, this is one of the longest-running platformers in gaming history, and for good reason. Being known for its outlandish weaponry and incredibly fast action, Rift Apart continues to offer that same gameplay experience you expect from the series without taking any big risks. Where Rift Apart does shake things up; however, is through its dimensional hopping, a feat only possible thanks to the PlayStation 5’s hyper-fast SSD. While some of its uses do feel possible on previous hardware, as we have seen similar moments before with Titanfall 2, and the original Prey, there are more than a handful of times where it is far more than a gimmick, offering richly detailed and drastically rebuilt worlds that load in a fraction of a second. While it’s debatable if this is the best entry in the series, it is most certainly the most technically impressive entry for not just the franchise, but gaming in general. If this is an example of what the SSD can do, then this could be the catalyst to games taking this idea and running with it, creating the next big gaming trend and changing games forever. And, speaking on the SSD, the speed at which this game can load its environments is mind-boggling, and still impresses me every single time I start the game up and find myself loaded into the adventure in less than 3 seconds.
From the game’s opening moments, there is no doubt this is one of the most graphically impressive games ever made, with visuals that rival several CG animated films. The sheer amount of detail, environmental objects, to the scale of its locales are beyond impressive, making for moments of eye candy to drop your jaw every few minutes. Planets such as Blizar Prime and Torren IV are massive in scale, offering a wealth of exploration and excitement as you use one of your widely accessible mobility options, or smashing a crystal on Blizar Prime to see the planet shift back to a pre-destroyed state. While the game isn’t photo-realistic, and for good reason, there is not a better-looking game on consoles when it comes to Rift Apart’s overwhelming visual fidelity. Just one look at Ratchet’s fur, up close, and it becomes shockingly clear that Insomniac is easily one of Sony’s top-tier studios.
Now, as she was shown off in trailers, gameplay, and of course, on its very cover, Ratchet and Clank are not alone on this adventure. Rivet, who is essentially Ratchet’s dimensional counterpart is another playable character, another Lombax no less, and one that is caught up in the gang’s adventure when an out-of-control Dimensional gun is tearing multiple dimensions apart. Much like Ratchet, Rivet is also curious as to what happened to their species, causing the pair to bond over the matter, even if they rarely share the same screen that often. Voiced to perfection by Jennifer Hale, Rivet sounds like Commander Shepard on helium, making for some pretty great lines where you can hear the slightest tone of the Milky Way hero. Regardless, Hale plays Rivet with a lot of care to her performance, making her stand out apart from Ratchet, and gives her real heart and a few moments of complexity in her emotions. Rivet plays off the cast well, especially Clank, who she refers to as Bolts. But it is her interactions with another character where it all comes together and will set the stage for her potential involvement in the series going forward or a potential spin-off.
While I adore Rivet and the personality that Hale brings to the character, she is more or less a character skin of Ratchet. She does have a few instances of exclusive gameplay moments like riding on the back of Trudi, her Pterafoid flying friend, but nearly every single other moment, weapon, or ability is shared amongst the duo the moment you swap back. While she has her own level of complexity and charm throughout the narrative to differentiate herself from Ratchet, I never felt like I was playing a new character when everything between the two is quite literally identical. While there is a throwaway line as to why, it’s unfortunate that Rivet doesn’t feel like her own character via the gameplay sections of the game. You’ll jump, dodge, wall-run, sprint, and grind rails all the same, so it feels more like Rivet is there to service the story and not its gameplay. If Rivet is destined to join the franchise duo going forward, this is something I would beg to see put into play of servicing the character from a gameplay perspective, thus making her sections unique to her.
Now, there is an upside to what Insomniac has done here and does translate into what is likely the reason for this; weapon progression. While I’ll dive into the weapons later on in the review, having Ratchet and Rivet using the same weapons allows you to continue with the same arsenal and that continued use is how you level them up. By using weapons consistently, you’ll level them up in order to flesh out their upgrades. By having this shared weapon space, it not only allows the continued use of certain weapons but it allows you to stick with your favorites. Again, I still feel that Rivet should be her own character, or have weapon variants that are all her own, but I do understand the reasons why this isn’t the case. Had Rivet and Ratchet had their own default gun, or something to at least lend itself to something that felt different from each other, then I wouldn’t mind some of the back and forth that comes with a completely shared arsenal.
As for the franchise faithful, Ratchet and Clank are here as they have always been. Apart from the Lombax’s 2002 debut entry, James Arnold Taylor is back as Ratchet, with David Kaye as the lovable Clank. With the story diving more into Ratchet himself and his encountering of another Lombax in Rivet, as his encounters with his own kind has been limited to a very small handful; the dream of wondering where the many others have gone is something that weighs heavy on his mind. The game begins with Clank wanting to make a grand gesture with the Dimensional gun to allow Ratchet to discover that answer, and while it takes a while for Ratchet to want to come to grips with that very resolution, and even the question that come along with it, the story does a great job at adding more depth to the Lombax than we’ve seen previously. We also see the narrative tie into much of the Lombax’s past as a species, and their involvement in much of where this story goes. I’ve never been one to really settle into the lore of the series, but if this is where the story is going to go in future installments, I’m all for it.
Much of where Rift Apart succeeds is in the dimensions and environments themselves. Whether it’s seeing this whole new series of planets or the dimensional doppelgangers of the supporting cast from Ratchet’s dimension, it’s the drastic and even subtle differences between them where we see a great deal of the narrative flow through and how it truly affects gameplay. From the packed cityscape of Nefarious City, or the green swamps of Sargasso, complete with a series of slug chases, every single planet offers up something unique, and the visuals to drop your jaw. Each location is filled to the brim with detail, hundreds of objects in every scene, and some of the best grind rails the series has ever known, especially when combined with the wall-running panels. Every time I got into the ship to go somewhere new, I was eagerly awaiting for what came next. If I had to pick one environment that didn’t quite live up to the others, it would be Savali, due to it being a very barren and less exciting alternative to the more busy and more enjoyable locations.
Each level has a variety of things to track down, from teddy bears to golden bolts, to new armors to collect, you’ll likely look to 100% everything the game has to offer in around 15-20 hours. Golden Bolts, for example, unlock special perks like changing your wrench or bolt skins, new ships to traverse the galaxy in, unlimited ammo, head sizes, confetti headshots, rendering filters, and more. As for the armor, you can mix and match sets you find, change their colors, and each piece that is unlocked in-game, and not that of its pre-order DLC, has stats that increase how much experience you earn, damage you take, or how fast you accumulate money. Since armor is shared, I would often use the same sets between the two, as I would want to earn money and experience across both characters, but I would change my colors between the two Lombax’s in order to keep track of who was who after jumping back in after a while. The armor is a nice concept, but It would have been nice to see variants of the same set based on who was wearing it.
With Dr. Nefarious back in the antagonist’s saddle and ripping the dimensions a new one, this causes distortions in the very fabric of reality, and much of this is taken advantage of by Ratchet, Clank, and Rivet. These distortions allow the gang to smash crystals to transport between dimensions, access small rift doors that allow them to travel between worlds, and even the ability to whip forward into small dimensional pockets, acting almost like a portal-based Hookshot. There are moments where you’ll be transported through dimensions during battles or story sequences, but these are entirely scripted events. While they are vastly impressive and look cool as hell, it’s when you are able to do these types of things yourself where it services the gameplay far better and feels less like a gimmick.
Now, the story dives into a lot of engaging creativity with Ratchet, Rivet, and Clank trying to make sense of Nefarious and his plan. Nefarious, who kick-started this with being unable to control the dimensional gun, transported him, Ratchet, and Clank, into a world where Nefarious had won, although, it’s a different and far more menacing version of himself that rules this world instead. One who likely wouldn’t be too kind to find an imposter taking credit for his many successes. Many of the game’s opening worlds share the use of Clank between Rivet and Ratchet, with the little robot companion joining up with Rivet for much of the early game. This allows Ratchet to have this fish out of water experience and find out a lot of what’s going on with this strange new world around him all while Clank is used to pass on a lot of information to Rivet, explaining the who’s and why’s of what is happening. This mixing and matching of characters works to the game’s benefit and services the story quite well, even if, as I’ve mentioned, it sometimes doesn’t service the gameplay in the same respects when it comes to Rivet.
Swapping back and forth between dimensions is incredibly impressive, even if not every planet allows for that function. While you’ll always have some sort of dimensional distortion to tinker around with, Ratchet, and Rivet, will have access to a lot of gameplay mechanics to aid in traversal, some that feel better suited to certain levels than others. The pair of Lombax’s are equipped with an Omni-glove to swing shot into dimensional tethers, perform an echo-based phantom dash, a variety of boots that allow you to glide, hover, grind, or magnetically charge themselves to some pretty enjoyable gravity walks on platforms they are compatible with. You also have a propelling sprint that has you charging forward to increase your speed. Most environments that allow you to smash a crystal to trigger the dimensional swap are usually designed around these traversal gadgets, having each side of the dimensional rift offer a path forward when one location presents you with a dead end. Rift Apart has a lot of variety in this design, and when you combine it with wall-running and grinding, you get some insanely cool environments to explore at a brisk pace.
Rift Apart also features two mini-games that are part of how you’ll solve some locked doors or various other means of progression. Ratchet will come across a character named Glitch, a small little anti-virus type robot that will gun down various viruses that are infesting terminals that Ratchet needs to use. You’ll use her little spider-like legs to climb up walls, cling to surfaces, and blast away at various evils you’ll encounter. Honestly, when I first played as Glitch, I wasn’t sold, but these segments eventually grew on me, even if the conclusion of Glitch’s story isn’t near as satisfying. Clank will have his own series of activities as well, taking part in an almost Lemmings type mini-game. Here, you’ll use a selection of orbs that when used in certain nodes, can affect time-variants of Clank, much in the way of how you would assign roles to Lemmings to reach an endpoint. These sections are fairly enjoyable, even if they do tend to occur just a bit too frequently for what they offer.
Now, weapons are the bread and butter of the Ratchet and Clank franchise. While there are certainly some standouts here, there isn’t much of what you haven’t seen already, given the nature of how crazy some of the weapons have gotten over the series’ many installments. There is a quadruple barrel blaster, a grenade lobber in the Shatterblast, a charge beam in the Negatron Collider, to casting out little helpers with the Ms. Fungal gun as well as my personal favorite; the Apocalpyse gun, which sends out an army of little robots to aid you. Now, there are 18 guns in total, with everything from firing off buzz saw blades, rockets, drill dogs that bark, and channeling lightning as well, giving you a ton of variety to find something that works. Each gun has a variety of upgrades that increase damage, ammo capacity, to even changing the name of a gun once you upgrade it fully, as for example, the Headhunter sniper rifle becomes the Migraine.
The Dual Sense’s haptic triggers operate weapons differently based on how far you pull the triggers back. Each trigger has a set first pull, then requires more of a squeeze to click it into its second setting. This causes some weapons to have alternate fires, aim control, target locking, and more. Now, while this system is interesting and works extremely well, I personally had to fully disable it after about 8-10 hours due to some weapons just needing me to pull back on the triggers a bit too often and causing my index finger to become a bit strained during long play sessions. This has been the case with nearly any game on the PS5 that uses the triggers in this way, that and instinctively wanting to pull back the triggers the entire way when the action gets intense, which was an issue I personally had with Returnal. I love how the controller offers this, but the muscle memory to use the triggers, and the resistance they can offer are mixed for my own tastes so far with the Dual Sense.
Now, mobility and shooting and just getting lost in the action feels insanely fluid here, far more than what we’ve experienced in the series so far, and in fact, probably any action-adventure platformer to date, providing you are playing in either Performance or Performance RT, with the latter being what I experienced for my entire run. There is a Fidelity mode which is a 30FPS feature with all the bells and whistles, but it just feels off and caused a lot of motion blur on my LG 4K HDR TV. Performance mode is 60 fps but lacks Ray-Tracing in favor of increased picture resolution. Performance RT is a slightly lowered resolution but includes Ray-Tracing and adjusted lighting and just looks far and away better when compared between the two. I never once experienced any graphical hiccups or frame rate stutters on this mode and apart from one instance where the ground didn’t load, causing me to keep falling to my death till I restarted the game, Rift Apart ran buttery smooth the entire time.
The sheer amount of detail present in Rift Apart is staggering, and I could honestly go all day talking about it. Enemies themselves are gorgeous in their details as well, even despite them being on screen as mere fodder when the game just throws legions of them at you. Some enemies even have small little scenes that play out, showing off their animations and personalities. From the Goons-4-less foes to the Rushers, and the hoverbike-equipped Vroom Goon, there is a movie-quality sheen to them that is stunning and had me tinkering with the photo mode to just gawk in their detail. This is to say nothing of the wonderful bosses, the chases sequences, to the outlandish spectacle of seeing the dimensions breaking and changing in front of you. We often had the promise of “Pixar” quality games being almost a reality years ago, but Rift Apart is one where I feel they’ve surpassed that idea and then some.
Much like a few previous Sony-published games, each first-party developer has found a way to incorporate strong accessibility options for a variety of players. From easy traversal options, changing how weapons fire, lock on, to a variety of assist modes, this way of catering to those who have difficulty performing even some of the more simple control options, goes a long way to not just allowing everyone to play, but creating new and engaged fans of this series going forward. Now, controlling the game is one aspect of accessibility, but so are its visual options as well. Rift Apart also has a variety of contrast options for heightened visibility, allowing for a wide selection of shader options for not just Ratchet or Rivet themselves, but for enemies, hazards, and collectibles as well. You can change icon sizes, hud colors, and honestly, this game has the best subtitle options as well, complete with a variety of colors. Hell, you can even change the aim arc color for throwing weapons, making it just seem endless with possibilities.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a damn impressive experience that, in my opinion, could have done more to make Rivet feel unique in her debut. Regardless, the level of detail to this game is downright incredible, as is its variety in its weapons, enemies, gameplay, and its wildly impressive unique locations. While I’m not entirely sold on the $10 bump Sony has made to its first-party games, Rift Apart is certainly an experience that feels justified for its PS5 only nature. If you are a fan of the series or a complete newcomer, Rift Apart is an easy recommendation, and one of the best looking and playing games released in the past few years.
Developer - Insomniac Games Publisher - Sony Interactive Entertainment Released - June 11th, 2021. Available On - PS5. Rated - (E 10+) Alcohol Reference, Animated Blood, Fantasy Violence. Platform Reviewed - PS5 Review Access - Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was purchased by the reviewer.