In the endless pursuit of Pixar-level graphical fidelity and near-instant load times, few have come as close as Insomniac Games’ Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. The game’s reveal for PS5 was a spectacle, featuring the titular characters jumping through portals and seamlessly – and instantly – transitioning to gorgeous new worlds, with the message from Insomniac triumphantly declaring, “We’re built different.”
I must admit that I was initially underwhelmed by the promise of near-instant load times on console – coming from PC, this seems quite doable without needing the “next-gen SSD” touted by Sony’s marketing for the PS5 – but it’s one thing to watch some trailers, and a whole other thing to witness it in-game. But perhaps that’s getting ahead of ourselves a bit, so let’s double back.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the latest PS5 exclusive from Insomniac Games, and the studio’s first full foray into the new generation of consoles. The series follows on from the “Future” saga, with its protagonists, now veritable heroes in their world, receiving a parade of congratulations… that’s promptly interrupted by returning villains. At which point (as per usual), chaos promptly ensues.
This time around, the trick is that the Dimensionator has been destroyed, creating multiple Rifts (heh, get it?) in the fabric of space-time, and transporting our daring duo into a different dimension, one where their archnemesis Dr Nefarious always wins. This is all a fantastic in-lore excuse to meet a new Lombax called Rivet, whom along with robotic frenemy Kit, form that dimension’s daring duo, and a second set of playable characters. The mission – hopping between the four playable characters – then becomes the simple task of, well, preventing the destruction of all known dimensions. Casual like.
For the most part, Rift Apart is your classic Ratchet & Clank game. It’s got an absolutely bonkers arsenal of weaponry that can be purchased, levelled up by actually using, and then upgraded with collected Raritanium. Each weapon is a genuine blast, no pun intended, taking full advantage of DualSense for haptic and audio feedback with custom trigger modes. The all-ages style of subtly adult humour is also back, though I feel the series needs to move beyond the pointlessly over-sexualised, borderline juvenile humour, as even I with my extremely dark sense of humour eye-rolled more than I laughed along.
Insomniac’s textbook focus on movement is definitely my favourite feature of the studio’s games, and it’s back once more here with just a ridiculous number of ways to get around – from running on walls, to riding on bugs, to flying, uhm, dinosaurs? Birds? Unclear. Point is no developer makes movement as satisfying as Insomniac.
What’s drastically different from previous games is the improvement on visuals, but I do wish this played out better. Rift Apart features ray-tracing and presents two modes, namely the 4K 30FPS Fidelity Mode and 4K 60FPS Performance Mode. Prior to release, only the 30FPS Fidelity Mode was available, so it’s the only mode I can safely comment on. The thing is, I don’t like 30FPS in video games, and certainly not in the new generation of games. This is especially frustrating because of the aforementioned buttery smooth movement, which obviously isn’t as buttery smooth at 30FPS.
Still, I can’t for a second take away from how gorgeous everything in this game is. From the character models to the weapons to the expansive environments spanning multiple planets, each with their own stylings. It’s not all perfect, and there are definitely some visual hitches especially with fur and transparency rendering, but when it looks good, damn does it look good. So good that when you’re done, and unlock Challenge Mode – the game’s New Game Plus, basically – you hardly hesitate to jump back in.
Rift-hopping is pretty cool here too, and is used in some interesting ways. There are the expected scripted cutscenes and optional puzzle areas, but also entire levels requiring you to traverse the dimensions. A world that is barren and desolate in one dimension might be teeming with life in another. You may need to hop between dimensions to make progress. It’s certainly nothing mind-bending, and there definitely are cleverly-masked loading times, though they’re so close to instant as to become irrelevant. You eventually stop noticing them and it’s just all game from then on.
Oh sorry, I can’t come to the phone right now, games no longer have loading screens.
