Following on from its announcement at the PlayStation 5 reveal in June, Sony and Insomniac games have shown off a much longer slice of gameplay from Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart during Gamescom Opening Night Live. Additionally, Insomniac revealed that the game will be coming out during the PlayStation 5 “launch window”, which could mean some time within the first 3-6 months after the console’s launch.
It looks fantastic. Check it out:
The gameplay on show was a longer demo from the segment shown during that PlayStation 5 reveal event, giving us a better impression of what the game will be like when it isn’t just madcap dimension hopping. Of course, that’s a core part of the game, Insomniac and Sony keen to show how the ultra-fast SSD in the PS5 is letting them shift between distinct realities in just a couple of seconds (there are still loading screens, it turns out, they’re just very, very slight), but that’s in addition to plenty of familiar Ratchet & Clank gameplay, with outlandish weaponry to wield while you bounce around arenas using the Rift Tether.
This was the first time that Sony have shown off one of their next-gen titles since the PlayStation 5 reveal event back in June. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was a major talking point from that show, with Insomniac Games building their game concept around the capabilities of the PlayStation 5’s SSD, enabling them to create a dimension hopping adventure that swaps between realities in just a few seconds (making for some pretty easily disguised loading screens thanks to their brevity).
Geoff Keighley has been on hand to present literally every freaking game announcement and event of this torrid year, and put a few questions to Insomniac Games after the gameplay reveal. From this we learnt that:
- The Rift Tether is the name for the ability for latch onto dimensional rifts and kind of pull them toward him.
- There will be no load screens throughout the game.
- You can feel the energy of a shatter bomb fade away through the haptic feedback of the DualSense
- The adaptive trigger can be used to enable secondary fire with weapons. The Enforcer can fire one shot by half-pulling the trigger until you feel a bit of resistance, before then pulling it all the way to fire the second.
- This is a canonical continuation of Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, but can be treated as a standalone game.
- There are more dimensional rift abilities that haven’t been shown.
- The fast-paced dimension hopping will be reserved for when you chase after Doctor Nefarious.
- Though she will be playable, the mysterious female Lombax name was not revealed. It might not be Abby, though.
- The game will be out in the PS5 “launch window”, which means it likely won’t be out on day one, but could be some time up to 6 months later, based on the broadest definition of the phrase. In other words, expect it in the first half of 2021.
The game is one of two that Insomniac have in the works for PS5, the other being Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales. That game is built on the foundations of the 2018 PS4 exclusive, looking to tell the story of the second person to don the Spider-Man costume, Miles Morales. There’s been a number of questions asked over how big the game is, whether it’s a true sequel or standalone expansion, if the original is being remastered, and it’s left things decidedly murky. What we know for certain is that it’s out this year alongside the PlayStation 5. Oh, and that it will have ray-traced puddles.
