- Begins with Ratchet and Clank transporting twin villains Vendra and Neftin Prog to a location known as the Vartax Detention Center
- The two wind up in haunted space
- While in the process of bringing his foes to lock-up, they escape Ratchet’s grasp
- This leaves Ratchet and Clank alone and stranded in the scariest sector of space they’ve ever visited
- Insomniac’s Brian Allgeier told IGN “the time was right to come back to the core series” after he’d spent time on Fuse
- Allgeier wanted to “make Ratchet feel like Ratchet again.”
- Allgeier and his team made a prototype stage (a “jungle gym”) to get Ratchet’s quintessential feel just right
- They then segued what they learned (or re-learned) into their new project, which isn’t only designed to give longtime Ratchet fans what they crave, but to explore the “darkness of space.”
- Allgeier thought it would be “fun to take [the series] in a spookier direction” with its newest entry
- Ratchet & Clank end up in Yerek after Vendra and Neftin Prog escape
- Yerek is a temperate locale inhabited by bumbling, heavily-armed enemies
- Ratchet has the Omniblaster and his melee weapon at his disposal
- New tools
- Nightmare Box: more of a distraction than an actual weapon; scares enemies, forcing them to either flee or to attack the box
- Repulsor: enemies will be suspended in midair
- Two grenade tpyes: Vortex Grenade and the Fusion Grenade
- Vortex Grenade: makes black holes, raising close enemies into the air and forcing them to helplessly revolve around the black hole
- Fusion Grenade: arc-thrown explosive, does major area-of-effect damage
- Winterizer: gun that turns enemies into snowmen
- Winterizer plays Jingle Bells while in use
- Ratchet can use a non-offensive device known as the Grav Tether
- This allows him to attach portals strewn about the environment, creating beams that will transport him seamlessly from one portal to another
- New function along with some of his returning moves (like giving Ratchet the ability to long jump, high jump, and glide)
- Game focuses on the idea of alternate dimensions
- When Clank is in one of these areas, players take control of him