Ratchet & Clank
11 documents in the library are about Ratchet & Clank, from writers such as Game Developers Conference, GameDiscoverCo and Extra Credits, the newest from 2026. Each has a summary and key insights with the page they come from.
Documents about Ratchet & Clank
Weekly Industry Round-up: PlayStation Cuts, The Division, and New Trends
This industry update provides a comprehensive overview of significant developments within the mobile gaming sector as of early April 2026.
- PlayStation's mobile division experienced layoffs affecting approximately 50 staff within its Studio Business Group, though work continues on soft-launch titles like MLB The Show Mobile and Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble.
- Bethesda has discontinued its mobile RPG, The Elder Scrolls: Blades, delisting it from app stores with servers closing on June 30; the game generated around $13.5 million since its March 2019 launch.
- Coffee Stain, the developer of Goat Simulator and owned by Embracer, is closing its mobile studio in Malmö, impacting about 17 employees.
Video Game Difficulty is Hard (But It Doesn't Have To Be) | Extra Credits Gaming
Traditional difficulty settings in video games often fail to serve players effectively because they require users to commit to a specific challenge level before they have experienced the game’s mechanics.
- Traditional difficulty settings often fail because they force players to make a permanent choice before they have experienced the game's mechanics or pacing.
- Player ego frequently prevents users from lowering difficulty settings; developers report that many players would rather quit a game entirely than switch to 'easy' mode.
- Adaptive difficulty systems, such as the 'game rank' feature in Resident Evil 4 or 'automatic challenge tuning' in Ratchet & Clank, secretly adjust mechanics like enemy health and item drops based on real-time player performance.
EA Sports FC 25, Space Marine 2, Astro Bot and PS5 Impress: September UK Monthly Charts
The UK video game market experienced a robust September, with 3.88 million console and PC games sold, representing an 8% increase compared to the same period in the previous year.
- The UK video game market grew 8% year-on-year in September, with 3.88 million console and PC games sold driven by six new top-ten releases.
- EA Sports FC 25 debuted at number one, despite a 4.6% decline in launch sales compared to its predecessor.
- Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 became the second best-selling game of the month and the third best-selling new release of 2024 so far.
Our Industry News (17/07/23 - 23/07/23)
The publication serves as a weekly industry briefing, summarizing key developments in the gaming sector for the week of 17–23 July 2023.
- Microsoft has secured a 10-year agreement to keep Call of Duty on PlayStation following its acquisition of Activision Blizzard.
- The UK Competition and Markets Authority has initiated a six-week review of Microsoft’s revised cloud gaming proposal.
- Xbox Live Gold will be rebranded as Game Pass Core on 14 September, with pricing set at £10 monthly or £60 annually.
Plus: Xenonauts 2, Punch Club 2 Head This Week's Steam Debuts
This analysis examines the performance of recent video game launches and market trends across major digital platforms, including Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store, for the week of July 17, 2023.
- Remnant II is positioned as a major market breakout, entering its launch window with over 54,000 Steam followers and top-grossing status driven by pre-orders.
- Mid-sized Steam titles are showing healthy engagement, with Punch Club 2: Fast Forward peaking at nearly 4,800 CCU and Xenonauts 2 debuting at 3,500 CCU.
- Niche genres remain viable on Steam, evidenced by the successful launches of factory automation title Techtonica and perspective-based puzzle game Viewfinder.
Remnant II Dominates, As We Start Tracking Steam CCU
Remnant II emerged as the dominant market force in late July 2023, achieving a spectacular debut on Steam with over 88,000 peak concurrent users (CCU) and 6,300 positive reviews.
- Remnant II launched in late July 2023 with over 88,000 peak concurrent users on Steam and 6,300 positive reviews, positioning it to exceed one million units sold.
- GameDiscoverCo Plus has introduced a new Steam CCU tracking metric that monitors player counts twice daily to provide more granular popularity data than traditional sales charts.
- The mystery adventure title Sanfu demonstrated the growing influence of Chinese-developed games by reaching 21,000 peak concurrent users on Steam despite having no English translation.
The Animated World of 'Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart'
The development of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart represents a concerted effort to bridge the gap between interactive gameplay and feature-film quality animation.
- Insomniac Games achieved high-quality animation for 'Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart' by fostering deep cross-departmental collaboration between writers and animators, allowing for creative storytelling that remained within budget constraints.
- The animation team utilized a 'previs' (pre-visualization) process entirely in 3D to plan cinematic sequences, bypassing traditional 2D storyboarding to better align with the game's technical requirements.
- To manage the production of content equivalent to two or three feature films' worth of cinematics, the team prioritized early in-game implementation to identify and resolve conflicts between narrative needs and gameplay mechanics.
Recalibrating Our Limits: Lighting on 'Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart'
The development of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart represents a strategic shift toward achieving feature-animation-level visual fidelity on PlayStation 5 hardware.
- Insomniac Games prioritized performance on the PlayStation 5 by mandating that all light sources cast shadows, abandoning previous-generation optimization tactics that sacrificed visual fidelity for performance.
- The lighting team established a consistent baseline by locking exposure and key light intensity as foundational variables, ensuring that all subsequent adjustments to fog, bounce light, and light intensity remained balanced throughout the project.
- To optimize performance and simplify workflows, the team utilized fewer, larger light sources rather than numerous smaller ones, which reduced performance overhead and created more realistic bounce lighting.
The 2022 Game Developers Choice Awards (Full Video)
The 22nd annual Game Developers Choice Awards serves as a comprehensive recognition of excellence within the global interactive entertainment industry for the 2021 calendar year.
- Inscryption was named the Game of the Year at the 22nd annual Game Developers Choice Awards, which recognized excellence in the 2021 calendar year.
- Valheim achieved significant market impact by securing both the Best Debut and the Audience Award.
- Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart demonstrated industry-leading technical and artistic standards by winning awards for both Best Visual Art and Best Technology.
Playstation 5 Reveal Event Reaction | Game Dev Unchained Roundtable News
The PlayStation 5 reveal event signals a strategic pivot toward a diverse portfolio of high-fidelity first-party exclusives, experimental indie projects, and cross-generational titles.
- Sony is prioritizing a strategy of high-fidelity first-party exclusives and narrative-driven titles to maintain a competitive advantage over Microsoft’s subscription-based model.
- The PlayStation 5 hardware introduces significant technical advancements, specifically SSD-powered load speeds and dimensional mechanics as demonstrated in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.
- External economic pressures, including high unemployment and COVID-19-related supply chain disruptions, pose significant risks to the feasibility of the projected console launch timeline.
15 Years of Ratchet & Clank: A Lombax Story
The Ratchet & Clank franchise serves as a definitive case study in long-term brand management and iterative design within the action-platformer genre.
- The Ratchet & Clank franchise evolved from a loose, improvised narrative in the early PlayStation 2 era to a structured, lore-heavy universe, requiring the hiring of a dedicated senior writer in 2007 to standardize mythology across games, comics, and film.
- Insomniac Games transitioned the protagonist Ratchet from a sarcastic, snarky character in the original 2002 title to a more empathetic and curious hero to improve player connection and emotional depth.
- To maintain consistency across a growing team, the studio moved away from oral tradition and implemented standardized design documentation, such as a four-page manual specifically detailing the placement and stacking of crates.