Insomniac Games' Senior Community Manager, Aaron Jason Espinoza, has revealed in a recent blog post that five classic Ratchet & Clank titles from the PS3 era are coming to the Playstation Premium subscription service on November 15th. The announced titles are Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Ratchet & Clank: Deadlocked, and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.
These five titles were added in celebration of the franchise's 20th Anniversary, and alongside these classic titles joining the service, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has also received a free Anniversary Armor Pack. The 20th Anniversary Armor Pack is available as part of the latest game update, which is now available, and will include five armor pieces inspired by various Ratchet and Clank Games, such as Commando Armor (Going Comando), Holoflux Armor (A Crack in Time), Quest Armor (A Quest for Booty), Marauder Armor (Dead Locked), and a Clank armor that mimics the design of Ratchet's own robot companion Clank.
Insomniac also reminisced on what defined the series and made it the way it is. Ratchet and Clank's unique brand of comedy was inspired by the live-action commercials in the first Rachet and Clank for PS2, especially the one where Captain Quark (voiced by Jim Ward) was advertising Big Al's Robo Shack repair shop, and said in his typical snarky tone: “There’s nothing worse than staring down a Blargian Snagglebest…from the inside”. For Ted Price, President of Insomniac Games, that was the scene that made him laugh the most and set the tone for the rest of the franchise to be of similar execution.
The blog post continues to shed light on other unique aspects of the franchise such as the diversity in weapons and gadgets, in addition to sharing many blueprints and concept arts from the time when they developed the first ever Ratchet and Clank game. The final moments of A Crack In Time were referenced as the peak of the story's ability to craft emotionally resonant narratives with exceptional animation, and the 2016 re-imagining of the first game was also deemed significant for how it brought the whole franchise back to life.
At the end of the retrospective, Insomniac Games says they want nothing more than to share this passion with the players, so they ask them to post their memories on social media with the hashtag #Ratchet20, and tag the official account @insomniacgames in celebration of 20 years passing on one of the industry's defining franchises.