Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is arguably the game that sold gamers on the PS5. It’s one of the first major titles we ever saw in action, and the trailer showed off the PS5’s rapid load times in an actual gameplay situation. The game wasn't among the launch titles when the PS5 debuted late last year, but Sony still promised that we’d get the new Ratchet & Clank within the PS5’s “launch window.”
That turned out not to be the case, but we still won’t have to wait too much longer for the game. Sony announced that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will be available in both physical and digital formats on June 11, 2021. (That’s a Friday, if you’d like to clear your schedule now.)
- Play the best PS5 games
- Check out the remastered games we want on PS5
- Plus: The Black PS5 is finally here — and it's cheaper than we thought
Sony shared the announcement both on the PlayStation Blog, and on Twitter. In either location, you can watch a short video about Ratchet and Clank’s latest adventure, but it’s mostly just footage we’ve already seen from other trailers.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart arrives on PS5 June 11.First details on physical and digital editions: https://t.co/POLuaG2fC1 pic.twitter.com/sdqR20WqjVFebruary 11, 2021
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart editions
As for the game itself, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will be available in two different versions: a $70 Standard edition, available in both physical and digital configurations, and an $80 Deluxe edition, which will be digital-only.
If you pre-order Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart’s Standard edition, you’ll get the game (naturally), plus the shiny Carbonox Armor from Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando on the PS2. You’ll also get the Pixelizer gun from Ratchet & Clank (2016) earlier than usual. (It seems like players could unlock the Pixelizer gun either way, but the Carbonox armor will be available only as a pre-order bonus.)
The Digital Deluxe edition costs $10 more, and comes with everything listed above, plus five additional armor sets, a photo mode sticker pack, 20 units of Raritanium (this usually lets you upgrade weapons), a digital soundtrack and a digital art book. Since we don’t know the specifics of Rift Apart’s gameplay, it’s hard to say whether the armor sets will enhance gameplay or simply cosmetics. Either way, the soundtrack is arguably the bigger draw here.
In theory, you could get some of the same bonuses if you buy a physical copy of the game. But Sony advises readers to “check with [their] local game retailers to see if they are offering the pre-order incentive.” Sony also gives gamers another incentive to pre-order digitally: a $5 credit for the PlayStation Store.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart setting
Sony has also offered a few hints about what the structure of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart will look like. As in Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time, it seems like the two titular heroes will spend a lot of the game apart, attempting to reunite. They’ll revisit skewed versions of fan-favorite locations from previous games. Clank will also team up with a new character: the popular Female Lombax from the trailers, whose name is still a mystery.
Sony claims that Rift Apart will be an excellent jumping-on point for new players, but will also continue the ongoing story that longtime fans have been following since the early 2000s. Whether it will incorporate any of the story points from the 2016 reboot, though, is anyone’s guess.
You can pre-order the game now at the PlayStation Store — although, perhaps after 2020, we’ve learned a valuable lesson about pre-ordering games.
