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Sony delivered on its promise of a Ratchet & Clank-focused State of Play today, showing off tons of new footage and explaining story and gameplay details. Creative director Marcus Smith said that the upcoming Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a new, standalone adventure built from the ground up for the PlayStation 5.
As the trailers have suggested, Ratchet and Clank are separated, leaving the main hero to explore Nefarious City by himself. This city is the seat of power for Dr. Nefarious, who has taken over this other dimension and dubbed himself Emperor Nefarious. Ratchet encounters a resistance group fighting against the Emperor, and as we saw in another recent trailer, meanwhile the new lady lombax Rivet befriends Clank.
The studio said it’s focusing on increasing Ratchet’s mobility, with new tools like wallrunning, a rift tether, and a dash and air-dash. Without Clank in tow, Ratchet will now have a pair of handy rocket boots to hover. Meanwhile, Clank will have his own dimensional puzzles.
We got a lengthy look at gameplay, including some of the gear from the new weapon vendor, Ms. Zircon. Those include the Topiary Sprinkler, which naturally, turns your enemies into shrubs, and the special frag grenade, the Shatterbomb.
The PS5 DualSense will make for alt-fires with the weaponry, like pulling the trigger partway to fire a single barrel of the Enforcer versus pulling all the way down to fire both barrels at once. Insomniac mentioned that the haptics will help provide feedback on the power of your shots. Both Ratchet and the new character Rivet will share a single inventory of bolts in the weapon shop.
The marquee feature of Rift Apart is the rifts, and we saw plenty of the heroes jumping through different dimensions and even into separate pocket dimensions. And to show off the visuals, this will be the first Ratchet & Clank game to utilize a photo mode.
Finally, Insomniac promised that this Ratchet will be especially accessible with a “slew” of accessibility options, promising more to be revealed soon.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is coming June 11. Check out our Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart preorder guide for more details.
