Can you believe that the Ratchet & Clank franchise is now 20 years old? Now once that news has settled in and you have finished aging a few years in a matter of moments, let’s turn our sights to the 20th Anniversary Celebration that franchise developer, Insomniac Games, have begun.
Insomniac’s Senior Community Manager Aaron Jason Espinoza took to the PlayStation Blog to kick off the #Ratchet20 celebrations, reminding us of the 2002 launch of the original Ratchet & Clank adventure, before revealing a series of great Ratchet & Clank related announcements for fans to binge on. Firstly, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, the 2021 award-winning newest entry in the franchise is going to be the recipient of some 20th Anniversary DLC. The “20th Anniversary Armor Pack” will be available for all owners of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart beginning today for no cost. The blog reveals the five pieces of armour and their origins, saying:
- Commando Armour inspired by Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando
- Holoflux Armour inspired by Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time
- Quest Armour inspired by Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty
- Marauder Armour inspired by Ratchet: Deadlocked
- Clank Armour to celebrate the greatest of pals
It’s also going to be a great time for any PlayStation Plus Premium subscribers who will see five new additions to go alongside the already available five titles that are currently available through the Premium tier. Joining Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty, Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One, Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, each being PS3 titles, are a range of PS2 classics, each themselves remastered for the PS3 and now available on Premium, as well as the opening chapter in the Future sub-series. Joining the five aforementioned games are
- Ratchet & Clank (PS3)
- Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (PS3)
- Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (PS3)
- Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked (PS3)
- Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (PS3)
The PlayStation Blog post concludes by sharing a few words from a range of Insomniac Games key personell including President Ted Price, who said
When we were in early production on the original Ratchet & Clank in 2001, we were trying to find the right tone for the story. Brian Hastings had come up with the core concept for the game and we had moved quickly into prototyping. The tricky part was finding the right comedic flavor for our scenes.
As someone who’s incapable of writing humor, I was waiting anxiously to see if Brian, John Lally and Oliver Wade who had been collaborating on the scripts could thread the needle and find something that was laugh-out-loud funny without being slapstick.
I remember a bunch of us crowded around an old CRT TV watching our first test cinematic. It was the ad for Al’s Roboshack where Captain Qwark (voiced by the great Jim Ward) states in his typically snarky tone “There’s nothing worse than staring down a Blargian Snagglebest…from the inside”. Even though I knew the script by heart, after watching the scene I laughed out loud. The lines, the delivery, the animation, the subtle social commentary – everything fit. To me, that ended up being the scene that set the comedic tone for the entire franchise.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is available now on PS5, while the five new additions to PlayStation Plus Premium will be available from November 15, 2022.