Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart opens with a parade and ends with a hole in the sky. Insomniac Games built the ninth main entry in the series around a single idea — near-instant travel between worlds — and made that idea the spine of the game rather than a feature bolted onto it. It is the most technically assured Ratchet & Clank yet, and one of the few PlayStation 5 releases that justifies the hardware instead of merely occupying it.
Trailer, via PlayStation.
Doctor Nefarious Steals a Parade
The setup is a celebration on Corson V. Ratchet and Clank are honored as galactic heroes, with Captain Quark, Skid McMarx and Rusty Pete hosting. Clank reveals he has repaired the Dimensionator, a device that opens rifts to other dimensions, so Ratchet can search for the Lombax race and his missing family.
Then Doctor Nefarious attacks and tries to take it. Ratchet shoots the Dimensionator without thinking. Rifts tear open at random. Ratchet, Clank and Nefarious are pulled into an alternate universe, where the device explodes and damages the fabric of space and time, separating all three.
That mistake drives everything that follows, and it is a stronger hook than the series has had in years. Ratchet is not saving the galaxy because a villain demands it. He is cleaning up his own error.
Rivet Interrogates Clank on Sargasso
Clank wakes alone, missing his right arm from the blast, and is found by Rivet, a female Lombax. She takes him to her hideout on Sargasso to question him, and she does not believe his account of the dimensional rifts — she distrusts robots.
Rivet is playable, alongside a robot similar to Clank named Kit. The player moves Ratchet and Rivet through a multitude of levels, fighting with a varied arsenal and clearing obstacles to finish key objectives.
Meanwhile, Doctor Nefarious lands in a throne room and is mistaken for Emperor Nefarious, an alternate version of himself who has never been defeated and rules the galaxy. With the emperor away on a conquest, the doctor secretly assumes his identity and sends his new minions after Ratchet and Rivet.
Ratchet and Clank must save the universe – again.
That premise — the villain impersonating a worse version of himself — gives the game its best comic material. Emperor Nefarious is what Doctor Nefarious would be with a perfect record, and the game knows exactly how funny that is.
The Rift Tether Changes How You Move
The mechanic that matters is real-time, near-instantaneous travel between areas, planets and other worlds inside gameplay scenes, handled through a system of inter-dimensional portals. A new tool called the Rift Tether pulls Ratchet and Rivet from one side of a portal to the other, moving them quickly between points.
It works. The Rift Tether is not a menu dressed up as a stunt; it is a traversal move, and the levels assume you will use it at speed.
Insomniac also adds dashing and wall running, and the game returns to planets from earlier entries through their alternate dimensional counterparts, alongside new planets the franchise has not shown before. The arsenal mixes new weapons with returning classics.
The series’ familiar systems are intact: strafing, gunplay, bolt collection, automatic weapon and health upgrades, manual Raritanium upgrading and gadgets. None of it is rethought. All of it is tuned.
High Contrast Mode and Simplified Traversal
Rift Apart ships with an assortment of accessibility options, including a high contrast mode and toggles for simplified traversal, camera sensitivity and flight assistance.
This is worth naming as more than a checkbox. A game built on fast movement between planes is a game that can lock people out, and Insomniac treated that as a design problem rather than an afterthought. The toggles sit alongside the difficulty, not buried beneath it.
Nixxes Software and the Windows Port
Sony published Rift Apart for PlayStation 5 in 2021. Nixxes Software developed a Windows port that arrived on July 26, 2023 — the first release in the series outside a PlayStation console.
By June 2023 the game had sold over 3.97 million units. That figure covers the PlayStation 5 version; the PC release came after it.
The game is a third-person shooter platformer with action and science fiction themes, built for a single player. It is a sequel to Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (2013) and builds on elements from the 2016 remake of the first game.
Numbers
- Score: 9.1/10
- Released: 2021 (PlayStation 5)
- PC port: July 26, 2023, developed by Nixxes Software
- Developer: Insomniac Games
- Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment / PlayStation Studios
- Platforms: PC (Microsoft Windows), PlayStation 5
- Units sold: over 3.97 million by June 2023
- Series position: ninth main installment; sequel to Into the Nexus (2013)
- Modes: Single player
Where the Game Stalls
The plot runs on a device that breaks reality, and the game is honest about the cost: Clank loses an arm, the three leads are scattered, and the damage to space and time is real within the fiction. But the emotional weight stays light. Ratchet’s search for the Lombax race and his missing family is the stated reason for the Dimensionator, and the game treats it as a premise rather than a wound.
Rivet’s distrust of robots is the most interesting character thread here, because it gives Clank something to prove and gives the player a second view of a character they already know. Kit extends that thread rather than decorating it.
The returning planets are the weaker half of the design. Alternate-dimensional versions of places the series has already visited are a clever way to reuse assets and a less clever way to surprise anyone. The new planets carry the game.
The combat is the series’ combat. If you have played Ratchet & Clank (2016) or Into the Nexus, you know the shape of it: strafe, fire, collect bolts, upgrade. Rift Apart refines that loop and does not reinvent it, and the weapons are strong enough that the refinement is enough.
9.1 of 10
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart earns its 9.1/10 on execution. The portal system is the rare technical feature that changes how a game plays rather than how a game looks, and the Rift Tether turns it into a verb. Rivet and Kit give the series two new leads worth following, and Emperor Nefarious gives it a villain with an actual joke built into his premise.
The score reflects a game that knows what it is and does it at the top of its range. It is a shooter, a platformer and an adventure, and it is all three without strain. The accessibility work is part of the achievement, not a footnote to it.
What keeps it short of perfection is ambition in the wrong place. The alternate-dimension versions of old planets are a callback where the game needed a discovery, and Ratchet’s search for his family — the reason the Dimensionator exists at all — stays a device instead of becoming a stake.
Still, this is the installment that finally made the series’ oldest promise literal: travel anywhere, instantly, and make it look easy. Insomniac did.
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