Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart

Rift Apart is a welcome and well-polished return to the Ratchet & Clank formula that has served Insomniac well for nearly two decades now. As long as you go in expecting that—and not yearning for some thrilling gameplay revolution driven by new hardware and technology—you’ll come out feeling satisfied.

Rift Apart’s greatest weakness is that it never truly utilises the brilliance of its dimension-shifting rift mechanics. You see a glimpse of the full potential at the start of the game, but then it sort of… disappears a little. You hop from planet to planet having a lot of fun, but there isn’t the shifting world design that you might expect to continue from its fabulously inventive introduction. This is still a big, beautiful, bombastic adventure with action, humour and heart aplenty, not to mention impeccable looks and craft that take full advantage of PS5. It is a game you should definitively play, but for all its flash and colour Rift Apart does – just occasionally – settle for the one dimension. Thankfully, it’s one you want to visit.

This is it though, the character and the absurdity and the charm that Insomniac is all about, that the team kick-started with Ratchet and Clank in 2002 and continue to master with such faultless confidence in Rift Apart. It's just pure craft, pure fun, pure video games - all the brilliant, bizarre ideas this studio has just thrown at the wall and all of them sticking. The only thing it lacks - apart from maybe a tiny bit of restraint - is pretence. There's no self-seriousness, no po-faced melodrama, no insecurity about the form. A game that's happy to be a game, in a familiar, cuddly shape. [Eurogamer Recommended]

Rift Apart is, beyond doubt, a fabulous game. It took me 18 hours to reach the credits, because I hunted down every scrap of Raritarium, looked for every secret I could find, and just bathed in its visually astonishing art. I had the best time doing it. Yet, the further I got, the more it nagged at me just how little this series has advanced in 19 years. If having the dimensional conceit and the extraordinary tech wasn’t enough to inspire something new, then what will? If there’s another Ratchet & Clank to come, it’s going to have to make some significant changes, because this might be the last time it can be repeated through its charisma alone.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart works on multiple levels. It’s an extremely impressive piece of software, designed to show off what Sony’s latest console can do. But more importantly, it’s a great entry in a nearly two-decade-old franchise, offering fans more wacky weapons, clever writing, and fresh biomes to explore. Rift Apart is an easy recommendation for any player lucky enough to get their hands on a PS5, for fans who can’t get enough of Insomniac’s heroic Lombax and his charming robot friend, and for players who want to meet a brave, new Lombax and go on an adventure with her, too.

Despite its ostensibly far-flung setting, Ratchet And Clank: Rift Apart is going to feel very familiar to anyone who’s spent much time with this franchise over the last two decades of its existence. That’s a bit of a bummer, in so far as there are a lot of Ratchet And Clank games out there that you can draw parallels to here, and very little that’s going to feel genuinely fresh or new. But that familiarity also extends to being familiar with the core, unshakeable competence of these solid platforming adventures that are designed for pretty much anyone to have a good time with. As a dimension-hopping adventure, Rift Apart might leave something to be desired. But as a reunion with one of gaming’s most energetically silly franchises, after so many years away, there are worse things you could wish for than the same old Ratchet And Clank.

For the most part, Rift Apart doesn’t stray far from what has made Ratchet & Clank so enduring. The formula remains the same: silly characters, great graphics, and lots of interesting guns to play with. But virtually every element is better than it’s ever been, from the touching-if-goofy story to the frantic action set pieces. And through this Rift Apart becomes a showcase for why someone might go through all the trouble to secure a PS5. It shows how more detailed worlds and faster load times can elevate a tried-and-true formula — and it might even make you care about Lombax lore in the process.