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Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart reviews went live today, and it’s a critical success. But whereas some big-budget hits end up requiring employees to work long stretches of excessive overtime–called “crunch”–developers from Insomniac are saying that they were able to generally maintain a healthy workload of normal, 40-hour weeks.
While it’s impossible to know for sure what conditions were like across the company, two Insomniac employees have posted publicly about their experience working on Rift Apart, and they were both very positive. Grant Parker, who states that he’s a game designer at Insomniac, shared on Twitter that he never once had to work more than 40 hours per week. In addition, he said that managers made an active effort to encourage him to avoid burnout.
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Now Playing: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Video Review
Responding to Parker, animator Lindsay Thompson reiterated that she never had to undergo crunch when working on the game. Thompson, too, said that managers played a big role in ensuring that employees never had to consistently work late.
Insomniac is, of course, a big company, and Thompson and Parker make it clear that they are only talking about their personal experiences. It is nonetheless unusual to see employees revealing a lack of crunch on a game as big as Rift Apart. Many recent AAA titles–including other first-party PlayStation games–have had reports about extensive burnout and excessive pressure put on the developers. Time will tell if these experiences were shared across Insomniac, but it’s good to see that at least some employers felt that Insomniac worked hard to avoid crunch.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart launches on June 11 for PS5, and like other PS5 first-party games, it nearly eliminates load times by using the console’s internal SSD. If you can’t wait for its release date to learn more, you can check out Rift Apart’s Trophy list to get an idea of what’s in store. In addition, be sure to read our Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart preorder guide for more on the game, and then take a look at GameSpot’s Rachet & Clank: Rift Apart Review.
