Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart — everything you need to know before you play

(Epitome credit: Sony)

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is nearly hither, and it has the potential to exist one of the best PS5 games so far. It also has the potential to exist one of the most confusing, at least if yous oasis't followed the series up until this signal. That's because Rift Autonomously is the 16th entry in this long-running franchise, and it draws heavily on the narratives from previous games, particularly the Futurity trilogy on PS3.

Showtime and foremost: If you're a new fan and desire to dive into Rift Apart without any preamble, yous should be able to do and then. Developer Insomniac Games has claimed that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Autonomously is a perfect jumping-on point for new players. It also seems reasonable to assume that the story will have some exposition about the story so far, both to inkling newbies in, and to remind veterans of what happened in Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus — which came out eight years ago.

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On the other mitt, if you desire the full Ratchet & Clank story, only don't have time to play through fifteen total games between now and June 11, Tom's Guide has you covered. Here's everything you need to know to get the almost out of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart's story.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart — (Image credit: Insomniac Games)

Ratchet & Clank: The story so far

Commencement off, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart isn't out yet, and Insomniac has shared but the broad strokes of the story with the gaming public. As such, nosotros'll have to employ a piddling guesswork to determine which plot points from previous games will be relevant.

Yet, we practise know a few things definitively from the game's trailers: Dr. Nefarious volition return as a major villain, and the story involves Ratchet and Clank traveling to other dimensions. We also know that the last game in this ongoing story, Into the Nexus, set upwards at least 1 major plot thread that hasn't been resolved yet.

As such, nosotros'll provide summaries for games that we wait to tie into Rift Apart's story. We'll as well notation which games yous tin safely skip — although they're nevertheless a ton of fun to play, if y'all get a chance.

The starting time major plot point you'll need to know comes from Ratchet & Clank (2002). This PS2 game introduced us to Ratchet: an adventurous Lombax, and Clank, his atomic robotic sidekick. This game explains how the two met, became friends and saved the galaxy for the starting time time. If you know that much, you know the basics.

Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (2003) doesn't seem directly relevant to Rift Apart, but Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal (2004) does. This game is where we first met Dr. Nefarious: a delightfully over-the-pinnacle supervillain, obsessed with converting all organic life into robots. As the Rift Apart trailers demonstrate, Dr. Nefarious is more than comical than scary, just has been a serious threat to the 2 heroes more than than once over the years.

Ratchet: Deadlocked (2005), Ratchet & Clank: Going Mobile (2005) and Ratchet & Clank: Size Matters (2007) don't seem to have much to exercise with Rift Apart. Merely Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction (2007) seems relevant. In this flagship game for the PS3, Ratchet and Clank face Emperor Percival Tachyon: the tyrant responsible for forcing Ratchet's species, the Lombaxes, into another dimension. To accomplish this, the Lombaxes used a device known as the "Dimensionator," which can tear holes in the fabric between unlike realities. That seems of import for Rift Apart: a game whose central mechanic involves hopping between dimensions.

Cloak-and-dagger Agent Clank (2008) doesn't proceed this story thread, simply Ratchet & Clank Future: Quest for Booty (2008) does, post-obit Ratchet as he seeks to reunite with Clank and repair the Dimensionator.

Likewise, Ratchet & Clank Time to come: A Scissure in Time (2009) is an absolutely vital part of the Dimensionator story arc. In what's arguably the best Ratchet & Clank game so far, Ratchet meets Alister Azimuth: a rogue Lombax who feels responsible for not stopping Tachyon when he had the chance. Dr. Nefarious also makes his grand render, attempting to accept control of the Great Clock, which regulates the flow of time in the universe. It's a fantastic story overall, just the big takeaway is that by the end, Ratchet is the only Lombax left in the milky way, and wonders whether he should seek out the residual of his race in another dimension.

Ratchet & Clank: All four One (2011) is a cooperative multiplayer game with a standalone story, merely it does at least show that Dr. Nefarious (playable for the showtime time here) tin be persuaded to exercise the right affair every once in a while. Likewise, Ratchet & Clank: Full Frontal Assault (2012) has basically zero to do with the overarching story.

Last, just not to the lowest degree, there'south Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus (2013), which acts as a coda for the Future trilogy. Ratchet and Clank encounter Vendra Prog: a young space witch who, similar Ratchet, wishes to reunite with the rest of her race in another dimension. While Ratchet and Clank defeat Vendra and her army of actress-dimensional beasts, they wreck the Dimensionator in the procedure, and in that location'southward no piece of cake way to repair it.

(The smartphone tie-in game from the aforementioned year, Ratchet & Clank: Before the Nexus, has no story to speak of.)

There's also Ratchet & Clank (2016), but this was a reboot, as well as a movie tie-in for the film of the same name. The game was very good; the movie wasn't. Neither one of them has anything to do with the master serial narrative.

That's pretty much where the series stands correct now. Ratchet and Clank are best buds, who have saved the galaxy about a dozen times and counting. Emperor Tachyon exiled Ratchet'southward race, the Lombaxes, to another dimension many years agone. A device called the Dimensionator could help Ratchet get at that place, only it's currently out of commission. Recurring antagonist Dr. Nefarious is at big, and about due to terrorize the milky way again.

What we know about Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart's story

From the trailers we've seen so far, we know that Rift Apart begins as Dr. Nefarious attacks the bustling city of Megalopolis. He uses a repaired Dimensionator to transport Ratchet and Clank hurtling through multiple realities, where the ii become separated. Ratchet must fend for himself in this dangerous new dimension, while Clank teams up with a female Lombax named Rivet.

Of course, the adventurers didn't current of air up in whatsoever sometime alternating dimension. In this ane, a despotic ruler called Emperor Nefarious rules with an fe fist — and Dr. Nefarious plans to take reward of that.

For the rest of the story, we'll have to wait until June eleven. Unless you have your own Dimensionator, of course; then you can simply travel to an alternate reality, where the game is already out.

Marshall Honorof is a senior editor for Tom'due south Guide, overseeing the site's coverage of gaming hardware and software. He comes from a science writing background, having studied paleomammalogy, biological anthropology, and the history of science and technology. After hours, you tin can find him practicing taekwondo or doing deep dives on classic sci-fi.