Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (PlayStation 5) review "There's a parallel dimension where this is the best game ever"

I texted my bestie a few hours into Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

New Ratchet is Ratchet & Clank for sure.

A few hours later, he replied:

That game is aggressively Ratchet.

Depending on who you ask, there are either eleven or seventeen games in the Ratchet & Clark series – one count emits mobile and digital-only releases. The series launched on the PS2 and stood out from (and outlasted) a crowded field of action-platformers, including the likes of Jak and Daxter and Sly Cooper, by offering players fast-paced, compulsive gameplay, cute, colorful characters, and an arsenal of novel weaponry.

Rift Apart is the famous lombax-and-robot’s first appearance on Sony's newest console and their first release in almost in five years. While the series churned out fifteen releases between 2002-2013 (I don’t discount the digital and mobile releases), the last decade has been quiet, with the only other release being 2016's remake of the first entry for the PS4.

Commenting on their hiatus, Rift Apart opens with our heroes attending a parade to celebrate their retirement. It doesn't take long for the parade to turn deadly when Dr. Nefarious, our heroes long-time nemesis, shows up with his army of goons. We think he's there just to ruin the day, jealous of the adoration he's never received from the masses he's long-sought to subjugate, until Clank reveals that Dr. Nefarious has more sinister intentions. Clank has built a Dimensionator, a gift for Ratchet that will allow him to travel between dimensions in search for more members of his species, and Dr. Nefarious is after it.

Since this is the start of the story, they are unable to stop him, chaos ensues, and our heroes are once again called upon to save the universe. The parade serves as our tutorial and if you've ever played a Ratchet and Clank game before, you'll feel right at home behind your controller. Controlling Ratchet has always felt good, filling players with a sense that they’re a badass game master as they easily dodge streams of bullets, double-jump over enemy swarms, and switch to the perfect weapon to obliterate them all, and that feeling carries forward to this entry.

Over the next dozen hours, players will jet through new worlds and dimensional rifts, encountering familiar friends and their dimensional counterparts. Introducing parallel selves for characters like Captain Qwark, Rusty Pete, and Skidd McMarx, lets the developers nod at returning fans without alienating newcomers. Most importantly, we'll meet Rivet, Kit, and Emperor Nefarious, the dimensional counterparts of our heroes and villain. Introducing Rivet, the first lombax Ratchet has ever met (and also a new playable character), again allows the developers a fresh way to present old plot points for newcomers while also tying up some loose ends in Ratchet's character arc left from previous titles.

The interdimensional mechanic works well for the plot but isn't well integrated into the gameplay. Most of the large, open-world levels don't take advantage of the dimensional unraveling, at most offering a few portals that transport players to a challenge level where they're rewarded with optional armor upgrades and little more. The open world mechanic is also underutilized, presenting limitless levels to explore while often corralling players into linear paths via environmental barriers, explosive barrels, or worse, invisible walls. I found this really hindered my sense of exploration and discovery, particularly when I tried to reach areas outside of how the developers intended and was met with death simply because I “didn't do it the right" way. This is especially disappointing considering developer Insomniac’s great work building the open-worlds of the most recent Spider-Man games on the PS4 and PS5.

I found only one level took full advantage of the dimensional rift mechanic. Working through it, players progress by smacking purple crystals that transport Rivet between dimensions, giving us both a thriving version and destroyed version of the planet to explore. Everything from the color palette, lighting, gravity, how you traverse it, and who you fight, changes each time Rivet thwacks one of the crystals with her hammer. Sadly, this is one of the only levels this is introduced, and while I liked this level the first time I played it, nearly every level is revisited a second time and by then, the mechanic was more frustrating than interesting once my sense of discovery was gone.

Rift Apart could have been a lot more interesting if every level took place in a different dimension, each offering the player new textures, enemies, physics, colors, and more. Perhaps one sees Ratchet and Clank exploring a universe made of felt fabric, or navigating a two-dimensional universe as a side-scroller, or bopping around a dimension with half the usual gravity. As is, these levels could have been in any other game in the series, and it feels like a big miss when the multiple dimensions conceit is so well integrated into the plot.

The limitations in the level design stand out because otherwise, this is a solid entry in the series and with some more interesting places to explore, possibly one of the best. The plot provides a lot of closure while also expanding the universe should Insomniac decide to carry the series forward. Weapons, one of the series hallmarks, are also plentiful, abundant, and fun. Our heroes have some twenty weapons at their disposal, each fully upgradeable, and as they are upgraded, gain some really fun new features. And thanks to the hardware, this is maybe the first game in the entire series that can handle all of the particle effects, swarms of enemies, and frantic action without huge frame rate drops.

About ten days after I sent my first text to my friend, I sent him a screenshot of the platinum trophy I earned with the following message:

Never playing this again lol.

He, also a long-time fan of the series, replied:

Yeah, we’re on the same page.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart had everything that it needed to be one of the strongest entries in this series and if it is our heroes’ final outing, a worthy send off for this tentpole franchise. But while the tight gameplay and great storyline stand tall in a series of eleven or seventeen releases, I left it with the feeling that the team phoned in the level design and that the mechanics were half-baked at best. Fans of the series can’t miss this one, but if it’s your first time through, you might be left wondering what all the hype was about.

Community review by justjess (August 08, 2023) Jessica Wadleigh writes creative non-fiction from Portland, Ore. She runs zines + things, a literary zine press publishing thirty titles. You can find more of Jessica's work online at zinesandthings.com or @zinesandthings on Instagram.