I tried to firmly tell myself that I wouldn’t be getting the PS5 for at least a year or two after its release.  Consoles are expensive, after all, and I can’t just keep…what’s that?  They’re making a new Ratchet & Clank?

Dang it.

Okay, so you might already be aware, but I’m a huge Ratchet & Clank fan.  Which makes the announcement for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart equal parts exciting and “well, there goes my money again”.  Seriously, though, this is great news for fans, as many of us had no idea when the next game was going to be released.  Let’s look at the game’s trailer and sampling of gameplay, shall we?

Video from Youtube User: GameSpot

This trailer shows our heroes (involuntarily) hopping between portals to different worlds, showing us just how powerful the PS5 is going to be, with the ability to travel between worlds with pretty much no load times.  Most impressive indeed, as are those beautiful and detailed graphics on display!  Recurring antagonist Dr. Nefarious has also returned (more on that later), with his newest plot appearing to have some devastating consequences.   Also, there is a chance that Ratchet and Clank will get split up again like in A Crack in Time.  I rather hope that’s not really the case and they won’t be apart for long, though, as I really prefer it when our titular heroes are a team.  But we’ll see.

To be honest, I am a bit concerned that this game is going to suffer from the same cheesy dialogue and unfunny jokes that plagued the PS4 reboot.  I know we haven’t heard tons of dialogue yet, but what little I’ve seen already makes me worry this game’s script is going to follow the reboot more closely in style rather than the PS2 and PS3 games.  I also hope characters don’t talk incessantly throughout the gameplay, either.  This got super old in the PS4 game, and I’m seeing the same kind of thing going on here.  To quote our heroes, “How bad is it?”  “Well, it is certainly not good.”

And is it just me…or does Clank’s voice sound different?  I mean, it sounds like the same voice actor.  He just sounds…off?

Ahem, paranoia aside, I’m sure we all have one major question about this game.  Is it going to be a sequel to that PS4 reboot I was just mentioning or continue the story from Into the Nexus?  I’m really hoping for the latter, and I feel like there is evidence to support it, as well.  During the gameplay, Ratchet and Clank mention Nefarious trying multiple times to take over the universe, implying they’ve encountered him several times before, not just the one time in the reboot.  Also, a major detail in the Future series was the fact that Ratchet was the last Lombax and that he had the chance to visit the Lombax dimension where the others of his kind had fled to, but ultimately decided not to leave Clank behind.  Considering we see a new Lombax character at the end of the trailer (and the mention of interdimensional travel), this would be much more meaningful if it followed the Future series rather than the reboot.

Maybe Insomniac will try to make this work as a sequel to both the Future series and the reboot.  I mean, so that the game makes sense to all fans, newcomers and old fans alike.  As long as this doesn’t hurt the final product in the end, this would probably be a wise move to kind of merge both fanbases so that the series can continue with one set storyline in the future.

People have also been a bit confused by the fact that this new female Lombax has a tail, even though it was stated in A Crack in Time that female Lombaxes lack tails.  This has led some to speculate that our heroes have not just been traveling between planets/dimensions, but alternate universes where female Lombaxes do indeed possess tails.  Me?  I’m just wondering if Insomniac merely decided that she would look better with a tail and that there was no need to take a line about them lacking tails so seriously.

Even though I admit that the alternate universe theory could indeed be true.  But I’ll get to that in a moment.  As I mentioned earlier, it would appear that Dr. Nefarious has returned, which has me excited and skeptical.  I absolutely love Dr. Nefarious, but because I love his character so much, I don’t really want him being used to death, you know?  People are already growing tired of him, and I don’t want to feel the same way soon towards one of my favorite video game villains of all time.  Then again, since he showed signs of growing tired of his villainous ways at the end of All 4 One, perhaps that alternate universe thing could be true, and this is a different version of Nefarious entirely?

Anyway, the game looks really cool, and I look forward to learning more about in the future.  Despite my concerns about a few things, I can’t help but feel really excited that one of my favorite franchises is making a grand return on the PS5.  But enough about my feelings.  What are your initial impressions of the game so far, dear readers?  Are you excited?  Or is there anything in the video that had you concerned?  Please let us know in the comments below!

Image from official Sony website