Over the past few years, Sony has been bringing some of its biggest PlayStation-exclusive games to PC. Ports like God of War and Horizon Zero Dawn hit it out of the park, but there have been some misfires as well, like the lackluster Last of Us Part 1 PC port. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the latest PlayStation-published title to make the jump to PC, and it has thankfully avoided the same pitfalls as The Last of Us to deliver a mostly high-quality port for PC gamers.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the latest installment in Insomniac’s long-running action-platformer series. First released in 2021, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was one of the few true PS5 exclusives at the time of its release, taking full advantage of the PS5’s superfast SSD to deliver a graphical and technical experience unlike the franchise had seen before. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart earned rave reviews in 2021 and that same critically-acclaimed game is now readily available to PC gamers.
As one might imagine, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a demanding game. The Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart recommended requirements suggest at least an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 or AMD Radeon RX 5700 graphics card, 16 GB RAM, and an SSD, though even with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, 32 GB RAM, and SSD, the game still crashed once while playing on the highest graphics settings. Other than that one hiccup, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart ran perfectly in our testing.
Cranking Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart up to max settings and turning on all the various ray-tracing options make what was already one of the industry’s best-looking games look that much better. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart’s jaw-dropping graphics pop like never before on PC. That’s not to say that the game doesn’t look tremendous on lower settings. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart still comfortably leads most games in the graphics department even with everything turned down, but it’s almost a shame to play it on anything that can’t let it reach its full potential.
Anyone interested in playing Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PC will want to make sure that their rig exceeds the recommended requirements to get the most out of it. They will also want to make sure that they have a DualSense controller handy. Like most other first-party PlayStation games, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart makes great use of DualSense’s unique features, so something is lost when going from that to a mouse and keyboard. The DualSense’s haptic feedback and adaptive triggers are used to tremendous effect in Rift Apart, and while some may find the controller gimmicky, others will find that it genuinely enhances their time with the game.
Regardless of how one chooses to play Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, they will have a good time with the game. Rift Apart is a classic Ratchet & Clank adventure, mixing platforming with explosive shooting sequences and giving players all kinds of creative gadgets to put away the endless waves of enemies they come in contact with. It’s got a breakneck pace that has players zipping from one dimension to the next in the blink of an eye, all built around a character-driven story that will have Ratchet & Clank fans hooked from the opening sequence to the end credits.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart sees the titular heroes separated early on. Clank finds himself partnered with an alternate-universe Ratchet named Rivet, while Ratchet teams with Kit, a female robot who’s an alternate-universe version of Clank. One doesn’t need to have played the previous Ratchet & Clank games to enjoy Rift Apart’s story, but the game is full of nods to the titular duo’s past adventures and so those that have played previous titles will find themselves more engaged than new players.
And that’s honestly one of the biggest drawbacks with Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PC. PC gamers who only game on PC have no legal way of playing the previous games in the series on their platform of choice. So while Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart’s story is accessible to newcomers, it’s still not ideal that PC gamers can’t start the story from the beginning and instead have to jump in on the ninth main series game (10th, counting the Ratchet & Clank remake from 2016).
PC gamers who do decide to pick up Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart may also be disappointed by its short length. Previous Ratchet & Clank games have provided surprisingly meaty endgame and side content to boost their replay value, whereas Rift Apart is comparatively quite lean in that department. There is some stuff to do besides barreling through the main story, but players will be able to 100% the game in what feels like no time at all. It’s possible to get 100% within the 10 to 15-hour range without putting forth all that much effort.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart’s short length means PC gamers will want to weigh their options before dropping $59.99 on it. And then when one takes into account that Rift Apart has been heavily discounted on PS5 multiple times since its launch in 2021 and that it’s readily available on PS Plus Extra, it is somewhat more difficult to justify buying it on PC. However, those that don’t have a PS5 handy and don’t mind shorter games can rest assured that the time they spend with Rift Apart will be quality.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart on PC is a near-perfect port of the fantastic PS5 game, giving those on PC the chance to experience its exciting action sequences, emotional character moments, and cutting-edge graphics. There have been several poorly-optimized PC ports this year, but luckily, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has bucked the trend and redeemed the PlayStation-to-PC ports after the disappointing Last of Us Part 1. It’s an incredible game no matter where one plays it, but it’s cheaper to play it on PS5, so fans should keep that in mind.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is available now for PC and PS5. Game Rant was provided with a PC code for this review.
Source – GameRant
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