Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Review Summary

Engaging & Fun Gameplay: Players consistently praise the game for its engaging, fluid, and dynamic gameplay, highlighting its fun factor and replayability. Many found themselves hooked from start to finish, often completing the game 100% due to its addictive nature and rewarding progression.

Visually Stunning Graphics: The game is widely lauded for its stunning visuals, impressive graphics, and detailed environments, often compared to Pixar or Disney animated films. Reviewers highlight the vibrant colors, spectacular effects, and high level of polish, especially with ray tracing enabled.

Faithful to Series & Nostalgic: The game successfully captures the essence and charm of the classic Ratchet & Clank series, evoking strong nostalgia for long-time fans. It's seen as a faithful and excellent continuation of the beloved franchise, appealing to both veterans and newcomers.

Captivating & Heartfelt Story: The story is consistently described as engaging, well-written, and heartwarming, balancing humor with emotional depth. Its cinematic pacing and memorable characters contribute to a captivating narrative that appeals to a wide audience.

Creative & Fun Weaponry: The game's diverse and creative arsenal of weapons is a major highlight, with players enjoying the unique feel and satisfying impact of each gun. The upgrade system is also praised for adding depth and encouraging varied playstyles.

Weak writing and character development: Players frequently criticized the game's writing, dialogue, and character development, finding them bland, generic, childish, and often cringeworthy. The humor was seen as less witty than previous titles, and the new characters, particularly Rivet and Kit, lacked depth and unique gameplay mechanics, leading to a feeling that the game deviated from the series' core identity.

Game length is too short: Many players found the game to be too short, with main story completion times ranging from 8 to 20 hours, even for 100% completionists. This brevity, combined with a perceived lack of replay value and content, led to feelings of incompleteness and dissatisfaction, especially given the game's price point.

Numerous game-breaking bugs and crashes: A significant number of players reported numerous bugs, glitches, and crashes, especially on the PC port. These issues ranged from minor visual glitches to game-breaking bugs that caused loss of progress, forced restarts, and made the game unplayable for some. There's also frustration regarding the perceived lack of developer support in fixing these long-standing issues.

Poor PC port optimization: The PC port of the game is widely criticized for poor optimization, leading to significant performance issues like low FPS, stuttering, and crashes, even on high-end systems. Players reported needing to drastically lower settings or tweak files to achieve playable framerates, indicating a lack of polish for the PC version.

Repetitive combat and low enemy variety: Players noted a significant lack of enemy and boss variety, leading to repetitive combat encounters. Many enemies felt like 'bullet sponges,' and boss fights were often recycled or lacked unique mechanics. This, combined with an overall low difficulty even on harder settings, made combat feel uninspired and monotonous.

Balanced Length & Difficulty: The game offers a balanced experience in terms of length and difficulty. Most players can complete the main story and achieve 100% completion, including all achievements and collectibles, within 15-20 hours. While the base difficulty is generally considered easy, higher difficulty settings are available for those seeking more challenge, though some found even the highest setting to be manageable.

Extensive Weapon Arsenal & Upgrades: A significant highlight is the extensive and diverse arsenal of weapons, totaling around 20 unique types. These weapons are highly upgradeable through use and exploration, with progression systems that encourage experimentation and strategic swapping due to ammo limitations. The variety and upgrade paths contribute significantly to the engaging combat experience.

Dynamic Action-Platformer Gameplay: The core gameplay is a dynamic blend of third-person shooting and platforming, incorporating various traversal mechanics like grind rails, wall-running, and rift-teleports. The game also features light puzzle elements and exploration of semi-open areas, maintaining a fast-paced and engaging flow.

Dual Playable Characters: The game introduces Rivet and Kit as new playable characters, mirroring Ratchet and Clank. Players frequently switch between Ratchet and Rivet, who share the same core gameplay mechanics, weapons, and upgrades. This dual-protagonist approach is well-received and integrates smoothly into the narrative.

Robust New Game+ Mode: The inclusion of a New Game+ (Challenge Mode) significantly enhances replayability. This mode allows players to continue upgrading weapons to higher levels (up to level 10), unlock exclusive new weapons, and experience increased difficulty, providing a fresh challenge after the initial playthrough.

Good overall performance: The game generally runs well across a variety of PC configurations, including older hardware and high-end systems, often achieving high frame rates. Many users report smooth gameplay and good optimization, especially when adjusting settings.

Frequent crashes reported: Some players experience frequent crashes, particularly at specific locations like Torren IV or due to GPU-related issues. Adjusting graphics settings, especially disabling ray tracing or restarting the game, often resolves these stability problems.

High hardware requirements: While many report good performance, the game is graphically demanding and often requires a powerful PC, especially a strong GPU, to run at higher settings. Some users feel the hardware requirements are quite high.

SSD is essential: An NVMe M.2 SSD is highly recommended for optimal performance, particularly for instant loading between dimensions and to avoid long load times. Playing from a slower drive like SATA SSD or HDD can lead to significant performance issues.

Ray tracing demanding: Ray tracing is well-integrated and significantly enhances visuals, but enabling it requires a more powerful PC. Players with less robust systems may need to disable ray tracing for stable performance.

Highly Recommended, Especially on Sale: The game is widely recommended by players, especially when purchased at a discounted price. Many consider it a solid experience, with some even rating it as a 9/10 or 10/10. However, a significant portion of players feel the full price is too high for the content offered.

Great for Fans & Newcomers: The game is highly recommended for both long-time fans of the Ratchet & Clank series and newcomers. Many players express a desire for more Ratchet & Clank games to be ported to PC, including older titles and future installments, highlighting the franchise's appeal.

Enjoyable Action-Platformer Gameplay: Players recommend the game for its fun, casual, and action-packed gameplay, often highlighting its platforming and third-person shooter elements. The game's quirky humor, diverse weapons, and engaging adventure aspects are frequently praised.

PS5 Version Preferred: Several players suggest that the PlayStation 5 version offers a superior experience, particularly in terms of visual fidelity and performance. They recommend playing on PS5 if possible, or waiting for significant PC port improvements.

Demand for more PC ports: Many players expressed a strong desire for more Ratchet & Clank games, especially older titles and remasters, to be released on PC. This indicates a significant demand for expanding the series' presence on the platform.

Highly enjoyable and replayable: Many players expressed high satisfaction with the game, finding it enjoyable, high-quality, and replayable. They are optimistic about future installments and appreciate its blend of classic and modern elements.

Positive PC port reception: Players are generally happy about the game's availability on PC, even if it was a delayed release. Many transitioned from console or were waiting for the PC version to play.

Suitable for all ages: The game is widely considered suitable for a broad audience, from children to adults, making it a family-friendly title. Its accessibility and appeal span across different age groups.

Positive reception for Rivet: Rivet, a new character, was well-received, with players expressing a desire to see her return in future titles due to her strong integration into the story and appealing lore.