Thus far, Sony hasn’t delivered many exclusives that really push the PlayStation 5 in unique ways, with the big exception being Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. According to sales pitch, the game’s rift-hopping gimmick could only be possible with the PS5 and its speedy solid-state drive, but is that actually true? In a recent video, which you can check out below, TT Games founder and veteran programmer Jon Burton claims Insomniac Games may have stretched the truth just a bit.
The crux of Burtons argument, is that the way the rift hopping was sold in trailers – Ratchet can jump between full worlds in the blink of an eye – isn’t quite the reality. Instead, when he jumps between worlds it’s mostly to small Pocket Dimensions that only include very limited architecture or sequences in which a series of very brief cutscenes or limited snippets of gameplay flash by. Burton argues most of this could be done on older machines by simply loading content in the background as games have been doing for years. He goes so far as to hint the trick could be pulled off on a PS3.
To be clear, in [Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart] they’re using the SSD to do everything properly, I’m just explaining how other pretty simple techniques can be used to achieve exactly the same thing on older hardware. I designed something for Lego Star Wars 3 where you could instantly swap back and forth between two vastly-different sections of gameplay, and you can always see both sections of gameplay happening at the same time, which is even harder to achieve. […] And that’s all running on a PS3 two console generations ago.
I highly doubt the Rift gimmick would work as well on a PS3 – there would likely be more stuttering and obvious seams in the process, but could a basic version of it be done? That seems plausible enough. Solid-state drives are still a major key to the future of gaming, but they haven’t truly been tapped into yet.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is available now on PS5 and is a very good game, regardless of whether the rifts require the SSD (check out our full review here).
