Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart review

Reviewed on: PS5

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a visual treat and an excellent game to show what the PlayStation 5 can do going forward.

“WOOOW, what a beautiful game.”

That is a sentence you will surely say with every new area you explore in this game.

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the newest game in the franchise that began way back on the PlayStation 2, developed by Insomniac Games.

In this adventure, Ratchet & Clank are taking part in a celebration for saving the galaxy, but a few events end up messing up the dimensions.

Because of that, we are introduced to the charismatic new character Rivet, a Lombax (the same race/species as Ratchet) from another dimension, who joins the adventure because she shares the heroes’ interests.

The game really is gorgeous. The quality of the animation and character modeling in the cinematic scenes is top-notch, and outside those scenes too. Most of the NPCs in the game are as well made as, or better than, many protagonists of other big games out there. A plus for Insomniac Games.

The gameplay is a blast. With the addition of a dash that makes you invincible for a moment, combat became much more agile, and it also leaves a good impression of speed and frantic shootouts.

The story is quite simple and keeps a good pace, with you switching between worlds and completing missions until the end.

Here comes my first downside: some worlds have a structure that looks open-world, with a vast area to explore, but unfortunately that is not quite the case.

There are many invisible walls that the more curious players will find, and more than once I saw a perfectly reachable spot cut off by an invisible wall. I also got stuck between rocks and ledges a few times, forcing me to close the game and reopen it.

The second downside, in my opinion, is that although Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has a good number of worlds available, there are few side missions. Practically the only incentive to explore the maps is the collectibles, such as Raritanium, the famous Golden Bolt, and the Spy-Bots, which give you a very good reward when you find them all.

Here Insomniac Games could have gone the extra mile and made a few more interesting side missions and/or added other parts of the maps as we approach the final battle.

As for the available weapons, I felt there are a lot of them, but some have similar functions and could have been cut to make room for more different and experimental ones.

Apart from those points where the game could be better, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is an excellent game and deserves to be played by everyone. A “popcorn” adventure with plenty of action, comedy, excellent voice acting and a game running smoothly, with no frame drops.