Another one of Sony’s PlayStation exclusives makes its way to the PC with the release of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart for PC. Originally launched in 2021 as a PlayStation 5 exclusive, its a direct follow-up to the PlayStation 4 title simply named Ratchet & Clank in 2016. Both games share many of the game’s mechanics but the key takeaway here is that this is Ratchet & Clank’s debut on the PC: an occassion in itself highlighting Sony’s strategy of cashing in their exclusives with a later release on PC.
In this review we’ll be discussing the PC Port experience for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and while we’re skipping the performance benchmarks for this game, we’ll discuss some key points that highlight some of the technological contributions that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart brings to the PC gaming table as well as the overall experience of the game.
Gameplay and Presentation
Ratchet & Clank is the quintessential platformer and much like its predescessor on PlayStation e.g. Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, the game is easy to pick-up and learn. What makes it different is its 3rd-person shooter mechanic, something that its cutesy, colorful world cleverly hides for newcomers.
Those familiar with trhe series already know what to expect but as mentioned, the game masterfully hides a simple control scheme that even the newest of gamers can easily find their groove in the game. This simplicity and ease earns top marks for Ratchet & Clank regardless of the platform and PC gamers would surely be more at home with a shooter with mouse controls.
The game natively supports all modern console gamepads on PC so pad players won’t feel left out and the game feels natural on either options albeit, the faster mouse flicks just makes for a more aggressive play style.
Complimenting this is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart’s unlocked framerate on PC allowing for higher-specced system to really go to town on this game. During launch though, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart faced bugs on PC and its extremely taxing GPU requirements has seen lower system like an Radeon RX 6500 XT dipping to only ~30FPS on medium settings. This is on top of random crashes on some systems which has divided the community on how the should be run.
Other than that though, the game looks stunning with all graphics settings turned on but besides graphics, the game also counts as a one of the first (literally second by my count) behind Forspoken to use DirectStorage which allows the game to access game data faster by leveraging CPU or GPU. While it doesn’t add anything to perceived performance, proper implementation of DirectStorage allows games to avoid textures creeping or popping on scenes amongst other things.
PC Port Report and Conclusion
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart largely follows on tropes established on the franchise many games ago and with the game being a technological showcase on PlayStation 5, it sadly fell flat as a game on PC. Everything that made this game as enjoyable as it is is plagued by performance issues and bugs that recommending it and saying it works great on my RTX 4090 is an outright insult to PC gamers as a whole.
Because with all the ease of picking up the game on PS5, the challenge of even getting a playable experience on PC largely swings in favor of those on higher-end systems, something that doesn’t jive well for the nature of game. As a mascot of the PlayStation brand, Ratchet & Clank serves as an ambassador to a younger audience but this installment of the game is not only riddled with performance issues but its price tag is also a barrier considering the amount of content the game actually offers.
Utilizing every upscaling tech to give us some performance bumps, even kids that have a knack for shooters should be able to breeze thru the main campaign with most of 1st playthrough gears unlocked in around 12 hours. A New Game+ mode is available but the game just doesn’t have the replay value to push players for another go with the promise of having better weapons.
The game itself experiments on some new mechanics to keep things fresh but even on PS5, the game plays mostly the same with only a new splash of paint. Ultimately, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a tough game to recommend at full price and is easily one of the more forgettable PC releases from PlayStation Studios despite its technological advancements.
