I’ve been a fairly big Ratchet & Clank fan for a long time now. I’ve played every mainline series entry more than once and consider the series to be one of the best around. I don’t have a PlayStation 5, so I’d been waiting to play Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart with bated breath. While the game doesn’t really do much that’s super different from its predecessors, it’s easily one of the best games in the series (probably in my top three with Going Commando and A Crack in Time) that’s only made better due to having the additional options afforded by PC, making grabbing the game an absolute no-brainer.
A lot was said about Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart being built around the PS5’s specific SSD, and while it’s clear that a lot of work went into making the game function well across a wide gamut of PC hardware, the port is mostly just fine, depending.
Most people playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart with an NVMe SSD report that jumping through rifts in the PC version is comparable to doing so in the PS5 version. However, it can take longer, and you can probably add a few seconds if you’re using a regular SSD. One persistent issue I’ve had is that when cutscenes start, there’s often a long loading time followed by the audio and animation playing out of sync.
Similarly, in the game’s first major world, I noticed that certain textures would load at a very low resolution. Touching any of this low-res geometry would allow me to go right through it. However, after a quick update, I haven’t seen this issue crop up since, which I’m pretty happy with.
“Most people playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart with an NVMe SSD report that jumping through rifts in the PC version is comparable to doing so in the PS5 version.”
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, depending on which mode the player picked, could be played up to 60 fps on a PS5, so I was bracing myself for the game to be truly demanding. Instead, I’ve been having a lovely time dashing through the game’s large areas at a reasonably steady 120 fps. For the most part, the game runs beautifully and playing one of my favourite series in such a buttery smooth way is an absolute joy.
Extending this joy are the controls. When using a mouse and keyboard, auto-aim and lock-on are disabled, and the shooting is exactly how I’ve always wanted to play a Ratchet game. The mouse input hasn’t felt laggy or off to me either, and being able to rapidly aim at foes while avoiding their attacks is possibly one of the most satisfying times I’ve had with the series.
Sony obviously hasn’t shown any interest in porting pre-PS4 titles to PC, but the PC version of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart makes my previous hopes that they do so even more intense. Aiming with a mouse and playing at 120 fps is just such a fantastic way to experience the series’s classic gameplay.
“…I’ve been having a lovely time dashing through the game’s large areas at a reasonably steady 120 fps.”
Unsurprisingly, the game is still absolutely gorgeous a couple of years past its debut. It truly looks as good as a CG movie in most respects. The animations, textures, and effects are all top-notch, and it’s clear why Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was chosen as a way to show off the PS5’s capabilities. In classic Ratchet style, the game is divided into our heroes (and their dimensional counterparts, Rivet and Kit) travelling between eight different worlds, all with their own unique gimmicks and collectibles. They vary between wider, more open environments that let the player choose the order to tackle some objectives and tighter, more linear affairs based around setpieces.
I noticed no performance dips while rocketing through the desert while looking for Lorbs or flying above Sargasso on the back of a winged creature. All that and more contributes to strengthening the game’s pristine art direction. As per usual, there are a bunch of different weapons to choose from, and half the fun is levelling them up.
They can be improved to level five during your initial playthrough, but you can grab Omega variants that can be levelled to 10 in the new game plus option called Challenge Mode. I am so very pleased to finally play a Ratchet game on PC, and Nixxes has done a great job of porting the game to the platform. This is a splendid action-adventure game, and I’m excited for all the PlayStation-less players that get to try the series out for the first time.
