Scarlet Nexus makes a good first impression: fast anime-style action with an attitude and wild visual flourishes to go along with it. There’s a bit of a Platinum Games vibe, and maybe you see a lot of Astral Chain in its aesthetic and premise. If you’re anything like me, that’s enough to grab your attention. However, after getting a hands-on preview of Scarlet Nexus (about three hours played through the Parsec streaming platform), I think it has more to prove before I’m convinced of its potential.
One of core conceits of Scarlet Nexus is that it features dual protagonists whose fates are intertwined. Kasane is the cold, stern, but sometimes friendly anime girl, and Yuito is a lax yet well-meaning anime boy. They walk different paths in the same story, and you choose who to play as at the start then experience the game through their perspective–the other, meanwhile, becomes a key companion in the story. The path through the story is largely uniform for both characters, but there are some small deviations specific to them, and some dialogue with the supporting cast is changed. But otherwise, they’re essentially two sides of the same coin.
Whether you choose to play as Kasane or Yuito, they’re both part of a larger elite task force who make up the main cast of characters. Dubbed the Other Suppression Force (OSF), these operatives have been physically modified with superhuman brains, which grants them powers to fight otherworldly monsters, called Others, that threaten their futuristic world. Your typical anime tropes make up the OSF crew, like the super-annoying arrogant boy who’s an absolute clown or your overbearing best friend. In the opening hours, however, the writing comes off as either cheesy or generic with stilted pacing, even though the voice performances themselves are well done.
Narratively, it feels like so much is thrown at you in such a short span that the story presumes you care before establishing why–between the flurry of character names, backstories, and roles in the story, the things that are supposed to carry weight aren’t given the room to leave a lasting impression quite yet.
That’s not to say Scarlet Nexus won’t be able to evolve into something more captivating as the story progresses, though. There’s a social sim aspect in between missions where characters have the opportunity to grow into deeper, more interesting companions, in addition to their main story roles. As for the main protagonists, the one thing that has me intrigued is the way in which the two are tied together–Yuito has a hazy memory of a distant past which he recognizes the present-day Kasane being a part of, even though they’re about the same age. It’s said to be a side-effect of their brain enhancements, but you can tell there’s a larger mystery at hand and I can see the seeds of a mind-bending trip coming together.
Scarlet Nexus is a stylish-action game at its heart, though, so gameplay is where it’s going to make or break the experience. You won’t necessarily get the fluidity of a Platinum action game or the complexity of a Devil May Cry–it’s a bit stiff as a whole, but once you get the hang of Scarlet Nexus’ quirks, it shows its potential. You have a set of basic melee attacks and psychokinetic powers to fling environmental objects at enemies, and properly timing both psychokinesis with melee attacks allows you to string together some crunchy combos and air juggles. A more powerful psychokinetic ability is reserved for certain objects in the world, and while it takes more energy and longer to charge up, it’s pretty damn satisfying to use–the specific analog stick QTEs make it feel like you’re physically controlling that power. It can seem like fairly basic stuff at first, but things start to layer on and open up when you have a party member or two tag along.
You’re always controlling the main character, but party members offer support skills–for example, the aforementioned super-annoying arrogant boy buffs your attacks with electricity, which can stun enemies and deal more damage. Status ailments such as being wet can exacerbate the effects of electricity, and it’s a two-way street since enemies can do the same to you. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before in action-RPGs, but it creates a satisfying flow in the heat of combat. It goes beyond just elemental effects, too. In a later mission, one party member assigned to your team offers a temporary vision enhancement to help identify enemies that can go invisible. And the few boss fights I conquered also presented some unique challenges that demanded using psychokinesis in smarter ways and making the most of my party’s abilities. While your companions fundamentally displace what would otherwise be spells or abilities, it’s nice to have AI companions as part of the mix in combat and story moments as well.
Kasane and Yuito also play slightly differently from one another. While you still have basic psychokinetic powers, their standard melee attacks and combos differ. I spent most of my time playing as Kasane, who uses a set of short-range floating knives, but the rhythm of landing hits and keeping combos going with Yuito’s sword felt more natural for the game’s frenetic action. I’m not entirely sure if combat will evolve in ways that magnify their differences, so for now, their contrasts in combat seem to come down to preference.
Structurally, Scarlet Nexus is essentially segmented in story chapters–some are small, open areas like the main city of Suoh where you talk to NPCs and do side quests, and others are linear levels full of combat sequences that lead into a big boss fight–and as mentioned earlier, social scenarios are also interspersed at times to help flesh out the character dynamics. This created an enjoyable flow that didn’t linger on one thing for too long. Yet, I can’t help but feel that these different parts didn’t particularly stand out or distinguish themselves as highlights of the overall experience.
When reflecting on my short time with Scarlet Nexus, I see potential for a high-quality action game with slick anime-stylings, even if I feel like I’ve seen something like this before. However, it’s the smaller gripes that accumulate and leave me reluctant to wholly embrace the game right now. I’m reminded of my time with other Bandai Namco games like Code Vein or God Eater in a sense–yes, those are very different types of action-RPGs, but they too didn’t really get me with a distinct hook. I feel like I’ve seen how this plays out before; however, Scarlet Nexus has my attention and I hope the full game can make good on the decent foundation it builds in its opening hours.
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Justice League director Zack Snyder has praised the decision to cast a Black actor in the lead role of J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Superman reboot.
Snyder reportedly shared his thoughts on Superman’s future on the big screen while speaking to Radio Times and others at a recent event. Specifically, Snyder is said to have expressed his interest in J.J. Abrams and Ta-Nehisi Coates’ new live-action take on the classic DC character, in which the Krypton-born superhero will be played by a Black actor.
“My feeling is that I love J.J. [Abrams], I love what he’s done in the past,” Snyder said, touching on the project. “I’m interested to see what happens, it’s a bold and cool and probably long overdue move. But I love Henry [Cavill] as Superman, of course, I do. He’s my superman.”
“I’m not really involved in any of the decision-making at Warner Brothers in any way,” he continued. “So I guess for me it’s just wait and see what they do with this and how it manifests itself. But on the surface, it seems interesting.”
Michael B. Jordan was one likely candidate after it was reported that he had met with Warners in early 2019 to pitch his idea for a Superman reboot (before he became attached to produce the Static Shock movie). While the upcoming Superman reboot isn’t believed to be connected to Jordan’s original pitch, he has been rumored for the lead role — though it’s a suggestion that he has downplayed.
As Superman fans may well remember, Abrams himself was once attached to direct a Superman reboot in the early 2000s. Abrams’ Superman: Flyby would have been the start of a brand new trilogy featuring a very different take on Superman and Krypton. Unfortunately, though, it became one of the many DC movies that never came to pass.
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Adele Ankers is a Freelance Entertainment Journalist. You can reach her on Twitter.
Ratchet and Clank is one of Insomniac’s longest running franchises, but it hasn’t seen a proper new entry since 2013’s Into the Nexus. Sure, there was the 2016 reboot/remake, but Insomniac has certainly been busy in that time outside of the R&C universe, creating new worlds with Sunset Overdrive and launching PlayStation’s megahit Marvel’s Spider-Man series.
So with Rift Apart set to launch exclusively on PS5 on June 11, the studio has a chance to not only modernize and iterate on what’s worked for Ratchet in the past, but to learn from its other series and blend their highpoints into the DNA of Ratchet and Clank.
The Ratchet series is no stranger to robust arsenals of weapons, but game director Mike Daly explained how the toolkits Sunset and Spider-Man give players opened the team up to improve various aspects of Rift Apart’s gameplay.
“What we found with developing Sunset Overdrive, and one of the things I think worked really well in Spider-Man, is giving the player a bigger move set to tackle their challenges than is strictly necessary,” Daly said to IGN in an interview. “Since you have so many more permutations of ways to handle threats or navigate spaces than you did before, it feels a lot more personal and customizable, like you had really solved that problem, which makes all the game play that much more satisfying.
“So in [Rift Apart’s] case, the responsiveness of your moves, the ability to cancel them our and transition fluidly, the different moves, the addition of the new Phantom Dash, among other things, really give you that ability to get creative with dodging and feel like you have gotten really good at its systems compared to past Ratchet games.”
That level of improvisation and expansiveness also applies to the battlegrounds themselves and the enemies players will encounter.
“Our battlefields are, on average, larger and more complicated than they were before. There are more places to take cover or get high ground, more places to find ammo and health refills across the battlefield,” Daly said. “Some places do use Rift Tethers to get an advantage, and this is balanced out by an arsenal that’s generally longer range and more effective, and a much larger number of enemies that come in at once.”
Daly went on to explain how Insomniac’s focus on weaving narrative and gameplay together, rather than making them feel like distinct parts of the whole, afforded them new opportunities with this next Ratchet game.
“Another thing we have taken away from our past games is how much we’ve realized gameplay works better when it’s married to narrative. Especially the very early Ratchet games, we plopped you on a level, and we give you a cutscene that almost seems unrelated. Now we know that all that moment-to-moment gameplay feels better when it has a narrative purpose. And that’s amplified all the more when you get to the end and the conclusion relates to all of the stuff that you’ve done as a player,” he continued.
And that’s certainly something we noticed in IGN’s hands-off preview of Rift Apart, as scenes felt reminiscent of moments in Spider-Man, dancing between combat, cutscenes, and back into action all without skipping a beat. While Insomniac has discussed how the PS5’s SSD essentially eliminates loading and has allowed them to pull off the impressive rift hopping seen in gameplay, it’s also led to some fundamental changes to development akin to that emphasis on gameplay connecting to story.
“What we learned from making Rift Apart is that not only do loads not matter anymore, you need to consider certain things, but you don’t have to design it into your level layout, you can continue. You can have gameplay through these [loading moments] as well. It really changes the way that we think about how we design the player experience. That to me is the most exciting part of this, the way we lay [the game] out. Levels have been consistent for nearly 20 years,” creative director Marcus Smith told IGN. He noted that this change is also significant because we’re just at the ground floor of it – developers like Insomniac are only just learning how to think about game development in this new way.
“I’m constantly amazed at what we’re able to do. What’s great about the Sony [console] life cycles is we’ll get better and better as we go,” Smith said, and those changes and opportunities are very much exciting challenges to him.
“I don’t think you can be in gaming if you aren’t excited by these new challenges, everything changes all the time. So even if you’ve gone several generations of doing the same thing over and over again, something’s going to happen where you come in and need to rethink,” he said.
Some of those new opportunities and challenges come with providing a well-rounded, robust experience to players, and as the recent State of Play demonstration indicated, Rift Apart seems to be filled with gameplay ideas and opportunities. Ratchet and Rivet’s core combat, aerial combat, rideable aliens, Clank gameplay sections, Glitch gameplay, pocket dimensions, collectible suits… the list goes on. While Into the Nexus may have been a smaller offering than some past Ratchet’s, Smith explained how the goal for the team from the start was to very much match the expansiveness of past major entries.
“Our goal was to make sure that the player experience is one that is equal to the rest of the franchise. In terms of playable hours, we’re in that window of where our full length games were in the past. And that was a goal from the beginning,” he said.
And all of those listed gameplay features are something he explained the team ensured felt substantive and additive to the experience.
“It’s tradition in the franchise that we want to break up the experience so you don’t feel like you’re just doing the same things over and over again. And all of those [different gameplay elements] are examples of experiences that will be layered in, in a way that feels paced out well. That’s all been meticulously argued over for hours and hours and hours, like every decision that we make,” Smith explained.
Game director Mike Daly explained how some of those decisions, in maintaining pace and keeping the gameplay fresh, boiled down to planet-by-planet discussions for Insomniac.
“With each individual planet, as they were developed by their own teams, they had the flexibility to get creative and ask, ‘What do you think is this level’s creative identity,’ which manifests both in terms of that level’s localized, personal story and that level’s gameplay themes and gameplay footprint,” Daly said, noting the team did a lot of prototyping for gameplay elements they thought would work in Rift Apart.
“When we asked ourselves for each level, ‘How are you going to distinguish yourself gameplay-wise,’ we could pull on that pallet of prototypes. And we had our minds open to [the possibility of] other things we haven’t thought about or haven’t tried that we can weave into the fabric of this level to make it a better, more distinct and varied experience.”
Though she may not be in the title, Rivet not only shares a co-starring role with Ratchet and Clank in the upcoming PS5 adventure Rift Apart, but she’s also been at the heart of the marketing for the new game since its reveal.
And though she went from “that mysterious lombax” in the original Rift Apart trailer to the now-Jennifer Hale voiced Rivet who captivated us in our recent hands-off Rift Apart preview, she’s always been a foundational part of the game.
“When I pitched the game, it had a scene that was very similar to what we released in our [reveal] trailer, where Clank finds himself isolated and calls out to Ratchet and a female lombax steps up and is like, ‘Who?’ That was in the original pitch,” creative director Marcus Smith told IGN in an interview. “And there were some people who were a little worried that it’s a game called Ratchet and Clank, not Ratchet and Clank and Rivet. And I had to walk them through the idea that it is Ratchet and Clank. It’s just a different Ratchet. We’re playing with dimensionality. That allows us to bring in new players by experiencing new versions of different characters.”
Of course, as the past looks at the game, our hands-off demo, and time with Smith indicated, Rivet is a fully realized, new hero with her own hopes and goals, who is simply serving the Ratchet role in her dimension. The two interacting and even merely existing in the same adventure allowed Insomniac to explore new character relationships, play off of expectations from pre-existing ones, and create a story that felt true to the franchise but still forged new ground.
“The biggest challenge was how do we tell a story that can bring in new players, but also builds on the past history of the franchise that we’ve been building,” Smith explained, noting that they didn’t want to abandon the series and just continue on from the 2016 reboot. “We wanted to build off of what’s already there. So we were thinking of the It’s a Wonderful Life model. Is there a way that we can tell the story as it was through the eyes of new characters? So, alternate dimensions were something that came up pretty quickly because we’d already been doing dimensionality in previous entries. That was a compelling hook for us, which is, what happens if there’s a Ratchet who doesn’t have a Clank, what are all the differences in that world and how is the character different or the same.”
That has, naturally, led to Rivet and her unique journey that players will learn more about in Rift Apart. Smith highlighted how the love for this character from members of the team, like lead writer Lauren Mee and senior animator Lindsay Thompson, and the emotional depth and nuanced with which she is portrayed as a result shines through in the final game.
“I may be the grizzled old man on the team, and I deal with a lot of people who are much, much younger. And the energy that they bring is one of not wanting to hide behind some sort of guarded machismo but much more [open about their feelings and express something like], ‘Yeah, we’re insecure constantly.’ We’re exposing the human condition in these characters that ironically aren’t human at all.”
Smith explained how that humanity and emotional depth on screen, both in Rivet’s story and throughout the rest of Rift Apart, is thanks to Insomniac’s collaborative approach during development.
“The spirit of insomniac has always been that great ideas come from everywhere. And that’s not just some empty platitude. We create these things together, and collaborative problem solving is what we do best. And the benefit is you get the best possible,” he said. “Lindsay and Lauren, they love Rivet like their own child. And that is extraordinary. That’s the dream, right? That you can have people on the team who don’t care where the idea came from. We just love this character and we’re going to [bring her to life].”
Despite the PS5 being just over six months old, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart isn’t Insomniac Games’ first game for Sony’s newest console. But while the developer does have Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales and a Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered edition under its belts, the studio is looking to take advantage of all of the new system’s features for their first PS5-exclusive outing.
Insomniac have, of course, emphasized how the PS5’s SSD allows the developers to let Ratchet, Clank, and Rivet hop from one dimension to the next near instantaneously, and with good reason. Shifting between fully rendered locations, sometimes from completely different planets, is an impressive example of what the console can do. But after a few months with the PS5’s available, it’s the DualSense’s haptics and 3D audio that allow for yet another level of immersion that couldn’t be achieved before. And given Ratchet and Clank’s penchant for wacky weapons, fascinating alien planets, and vibrant environments, Rift Apart is looking to certainly take advantage of those elements.
“We’ve put a lot of effort into our haptics implementation, and the result is you get this very complex tapestry of haptics responses. It feels like audio in the sense that the world is filled out with a lot of small details that have these little haptics responses,” game director Mike Daly said in an interview with IGN.
“One thing we found was that if we use the full range of volumes available in haptics, and we basically constrained the duration enough, that already opened the door to having a lot more frequent responses that lived in the background, like the ambient sound on a level doesn’t distract you from the music or the dialogue,” he continued in response to my question about tuning the haptics to be immersive but not too distracting.
“We realized that we could dial things up, and we could also dial things back dynamically, which means when big things happen like weapons or explosions, it’s like listening to the sound of the game where things naturally go down to let you hear the dialogue come through. We have the same system applied to haptics, so that you’re always feeling the most important things, but it never gets muddy or confusing,” he continued.
And if it sounds like, well, sound has a lot in common with haptics rather than traditional rumble, you’re right. Both Daly and creative director Marcus Smith, spoke about how the team has had to adjust its thinking about haptics not just in what players will perceive, but how it’s developed.
“Rumble used to be something that we had designers or production support do because it was much more scripting, but now it’s waveform editing. It’s an audio tool more than anything else,” Smith said.
Ingenuity, when it came to sound, wasn’t something that just applied to haptics, either. Due to the built-in ability to offer 3D audio in games, Insomniac sought to bring the worlds of Ratchet and Clank to life like never before.
“One of the nice things about it is that the sound designers more or less get to say whether a given thing needs to have 3D spectral audio, or traditional, depending on your sound output device. We did learn some lessons about what makes for good complimentary 3D spatial audio, where were the most effective places where we want players to pick up on a thing coming from a particular location,” Daly explained.
Ratchet and Clank’s first PS5 adventure is shaping up to be something special. And as a longtime player of the franchise, seeing over 30 more minutes of Rift Apart gameplay in a hands-off demo solidified for me that this proper, full-length, brand new Ratchet and Clank could be both a perfect starting point for newcomers and one that, so far, looks to be the best showcase for how developers can push games on the PS5.
My demo consisted of two major sections: what appears to be either the very start of Rift Apart, or something very close to it, as Ratchet and Clank receive a parade honoring their years of heroic service, as well as a section sometime later, following Clank being thrown into another dimension and teaming up with the new lombax Rivet.
The scale and spectacle is clearly, um, ratcheted up right from the first dimensional jump in what seems like clear lessons learned from Insomniac’s work on Marvel’s Spider-Man. And, most importantly as someone who’s been playing this series since 2002, Rift Apart looks to be the most nuanced on an emotional level, with Ratchet and Clank’s friendship and their own personal histories coming into play alongside the fascinating depiction of Rivet, who, somewhat unsurprisingly thanks to the studio’s track record, is an endearing, funny, and welcome addition to the core cast.
A Web of Influence
Something really striking about both sections of gameplay I saw came from the sheer scale of what Insomniac is pulling off. The expanse of what Ratchet can do on PS5 became clear in the State of Play, from the bustling density of Nefarious City to the meticulous detail of Ratchet’s fur. And while the franchise has been part of Insomniac’s DNA for much longer, it’s hard not to feel some of the impact of a couple Spider-Man games under their belt influencing the more cinematic take on the action I witnessed here.
My Rift Apart demonstration didn’t really include quicktime events, but did offer familiar moments where gameplay would seamlessly transition into a brief cinematic and back into gameplay, all without loading, and all while keeping the tension and pace up. These brief, show-stopping moments, like when Ratchet is tumbling through the air from one parade float to the next, offer chances for not only the gorgeous animation work to shine through, but for more personality to be displayed alongside behind-the-back shooting and platfoming sections. They feel inspired by superheroic quicktime events in Spidey’s outings, and they elevate the thrill of what could be a typical combat section.
It’s that sense of driving everything to be more impactful that lends the increased scope a sense of not making everything bigger just for the sake of it. Take a lengthy rail-grinding section in RIvet’s chapter I saw. Insomniac showcased a brief glimpse of it in the State of Play, but it’s part of a much larger story beat. Rivet and Clank are attempting to find someone known as The Fixer, who turns out to be this giant mech surrounded by scaffolding.
After turning The Fixer back on, Rivet and Clank discover that it has been enduring a bit of an existential crisis. If The Fixer can be broken and not repaired, can anything really ever be fixed? Perhaps all beings are better off left in their eventual, inevitable state, destroyed. And so the kaiju-sized robot begins wreaking havoc, unshaken from this new, pessimistic viewpoint. Rivet and Clank really need the bot’s help, though, so as the two begin grinding through an extensive area, narrowly missing falling scaffolding and deathblows caused by The Fixer’s destruction, they need to come up with a solution.
Now, Ratchet is a series full of wild weapon combat, delightful wrench smacks against foes, and more, but, as The Fixer continues lamenting, Clank has a realization. The fix The Fixer needs is an internal one – a realignment of its viewpoint, not necessarily a mechanical, external one. In a desperate attempt, Clank calls out to the robot to tell him not to worry, because even though Clank has suffered a mechanical injury, he’s not broken. He’s still Clank, and The Fixer can be The Fixer.
It’s a change of heart (or circuitry) that takes hold. In fact, Clank’s improvised epiphany is built out of something Rivet says to him earlier in the scene. The Fixer calls Clank broken, too, but Rivet asserts that if he’s broken, well then so is she, and she thinks they’re both pretty awesome. So “broken” must be the wrong way of looking at it. In just a few short moments the sequence deftly balances extreme rail grinding with an attempt to get to the core of an emotional and mental health issue. It’s equal parts touching and thrilling, and immediately endeared me to Rivet, thanks in part to the animation, writing, and Jennifer Hale’s performance.
Insomniac developers described Rivet as an intriguing parallel to Ratchet – whereas he’s always had Clank alongside him during these adventures, Rivet has been a rebel fighting for good but fighting alone. She has a tough exterior, but is also deeply empathetic and caring. She can be vulnerable and knows it. That dichotomy really lends itself to a new bond with Clank, who she affectionately calls “Bolts,” but also offers another emotional buy-in to the central story. The Dimensionator is meant to let Ratchet hop to the dimension where the rest of his species is, but the parade scene clearly shows he has some reservations. Clank explains some of this to Rivet, who doesn’t do the best job of hiding how desperately she would love the opportunity to find other lombaxes.
As I said, there’s likely still so much more to see of where the story goes from here, but if my time with Rift Apart proved anything, it’s that the humor and spirit of Ratchet and Clank has absolutely made its way to Rift Apart, and it may have more heart than ever before.
The Suit Maketh the Lombax
While the twists and turns of Rift Apart’s story are largely still a mystery, the showcase of action in both Rivet and Ratchet’s parts made it clear that traversal and combat also stick to the core of what’s made the franchise work so well in the past, but with refinements and additions that offer some sorely needed updates.
Ratchet’s DNA of third-person shooting and platform collectathon gameplay is certainly intact – the worlds are littered with crates to smash, pocket dimensions or gold bolts to collect, and waves of baddies to systematically demolish with Insomniac’s trademark knack for wacky weapons. Rather than mess with what’s still quite fun to play, especially having just revisited 2016’s Ratchet and Clank thanks to its PS5 performance patch, Insomniac has instead added and iterated on what’s there.
It’s worth noting that, rather than make the two heroes massively different, switching from Ratchet to Rivet sections won’t be a jarring experience – their core moves are the same, and their arsenal and health progress is shared across the two. (This seems to, amusingly, be explained away when weapons dealer Ms. Zurkon explains how Rivet’s fellow spy friend – Ratchet – has also been contributing to their rebellion.)
Regardless, the two lombaxes are more agile than ever before, with a dash move that the developers explained can let the heroes phase through enemy attacks, and is something that’s unaffected when gravity comes into play. Among the many other changes, strafing has been improved, enemies show some signs of damage with armor pieces flying off, depth of field comes into play to allow the player a better focus on enemies, and ammo for your currently equipped weapon is shown beneath the reticule so you can keep a better eye on it.
And speaking of weapons, those will likely be some of the most anticipated elements for players. I still haven’t gone hands-on with the game, so descriptions of how DualSense haptics or the adaptive triggers are used to enhance the immersion are, for now, just that – descriptions. They’re certainly one of the aspects I’m most curious about, and if any developer can make great use of those features, I’d bet my money on Insomniac and Ratchet’s arsenal.
So far, the weapons on display seem like a great mix of enhancements to previously existing weapons like the Buzz Blades, but I’m already in love with some of the new additions. The Topiary Sprinkler literally roots enemies in place by covering them in flora, which is great for circling around enemies with big shields, while Mr. Fungi is a Mr. Zurkon-like sentient weapon, who gleefully shoots spores at enemies to harm them.
Add in weapons like the Ricochet, which takes its pinball inspirations and turns them into a projectile that players can not only bounce multiple times on enemies at will, but even has a little timing minigame baked in where sending it back at a foe at the right moment will deal extra damage, and the ingenuity is clearly back in full force. I can’t speak to the full suite just yet, but it’s clear Insomniac is trying to up Ratchet’s arsenal.
The visual flair that comes with all of these weapons, the character animations, and the incredible level detail across planets is certainly stunning, but that too, like using the DualSense, is something I didn’t get a full flavor for in this demonstration. Given the recent State of Play and the gameplay you can see right now, I’ve no doubt Ratchet and Clank has the capability to look as good, if not better, than the Pixar movies it’s always compared to, but a streaming video demonstration just doesn’t offer the full effect. That’s not to speak anything ill of the game or the animation work, but if anything it only makes me more excited to get to play Rift Apart as it’s intended – on a large, 4K HDTV.
There’s so much more I could go into from my time just watching Rift Apart gameplay, and a small slice of it at that. From the dimensional twists on established characters, to Captain Qwark’s hilarious writing and performance at the parade, to the enemy variety and more – Rift Apart is quickly assuaging any fears that it might be a light package coming at the start of the PS5 generation. It looks dense, both in its graphical detail and in its gameplay offerings, and the character moments I saw made me love this cast all over again, and fall in love with what the team is doing with Rivet. Ratchet and Clank may have been out of the game for a bit, but with Rivet by their side, Rift Apart may just thrust them back into the spotlight in fantastic fashion.
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Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s Senior News Editor, host of Podcast Beyond!, and PlayStation lead. Talk to him on Twitter @jmdornbush.
I’ve played a lot of character-action games and action-RPGs in my years of gaming, which was why when I went into my hands-on session with Scarlet Nexus, I figured that I pretty much knew what to expect. But Scarlet Nexus surprised me with a style of combat that was both fast-paced and deliberate, while also still managing to combine that with an endearing cast of characters that already had me invested in their relationships and struggles even in just the four hours that I got to play. Add on top of that a unique “Brainpunk” aesthetic and the core mechanic of being able to throw cars at your enemies, and Scarlet Nexus is standing out in all of the right ways.
Scarlet Nexus’s world is one that runs largely due to the powers of the brain, hence the “Brainpunk” label. People communicate telepathically, there are augmented reality pop ups and advertisements all over the city, and most importantly, many of its inhabitants are gifted with special mental abilities. The two playable protagonists, Yuito and Kasane, are equipped with Psychokinesis, which gives them the ability to move objects with their minds. But through the usage of what’s known as the SAS (Struggle Arms System), they’re also able to temporarily borrow the powers of those close to them.
This forms the main framework of Scarlet Nexus’s combat. Both Yuito and Kasane are able to fight with traditional attacks using their preferred weapon of choice – for Yuito that’s a sword and for Kasane it’s a handful of knives that she sends out and calls back telekinetically – but in addition to that they’re also able to seamlessly toss anything that’s not bolted down at their target for big damage. The catch is that using your psychokinesis takes a great deal of mental power, and the only way to restore that quickly is by getting back in the thick of it and landing regular attacks.
So you’re encouraged to mix in regular and psychokinetic attacks regularly, and thankfully, there’s a really great flow to the combat where you’re able to toss an object and then immediately press the attack button to dash in towards your target, land some hits to fill up your meter, and then when you try to throw an object again, you’ll automatically jump back out of the fray. The mobility aspect of it is important, because unlike many other action games, you have to fully commit to either attack or defense, as you can not cancel your attacking animation to roll away. So mixing in your psychokinetic attacks with your regular attacks is actually an important way to be defensive while also still being on the attack.
The final wrinkle in the combat system is the addition of your party members, each of whom have their own special mental power, and can be called upon to temporarily give you their ability. Yuito’s childhood friend Hanabi, for instance, has pyrokinesis and is able to imbue each of your attacks with flames. This is especially important because most enemies have elemental strengths and weaknesses that you’ll need to exploit in order to deal with them effectively. Beyond that, you can also utilize elements of the environment to put on some extra hurt, like using your psychokinesis to grab an oil barrel to douse an enemy in gasoline, and then borrow Hanabi’s pyrokinesis to ignite them for pyrotechnic damage.
What was most impressive about my three hours of playtime, which started at the very beginning of the game, is how quickly I was exposed to a huge variety of both characters and powers, and the ways in which they synergize with your psychokinesis. One of my favorite examples involved a time I was partnered with a character that could use invisibility while we traversed a subway. When we came up on a group of unsuspecting enemies, I was able to turn invisible, run right past them, and then telekinetically pull a train along the tracks to wipe them all out in one satisfying go.
Other powers were more meant to deal with very specific enemy types, like the ability to slow down time, which was used to counter fast enemies that would just move out of the way of traditional attacks; or the ability to use clairvoyance and spot invisible enemies; or the ability to harden your body and protect yourself against otherwise unavoidable attacks from an especially strong foe.
The most promising aspect of this whole system is the fact that your party members’ abilities can be strengthened via a persona-esque bond system that has you deepening your relationships with each individual character, which in turns adds new properties to their abilities. What’s even more impressive about this system is that there are two playable characters, and their playthroughs are almost entirely different.
And that’s probably the aspect of Scarlet Nexus that excites me the most. I spent the majority of my playtime playing as Yuito, but I also had time to run through the first hour or so as Kasane and was shocked at how different things felt. This is absolutely not a case where there’s a male and a female option of the same character; Kasane and Yuito are entirely different characters with distinct personalities, different motivations, different relationships, and different combat abilities.
Yuito’s combat style, for example, is focused on short range sword attacks that excel at dealing a lot of damage to a single enemy. Kasane’s on the other hand is more of a mid-range style that is a bit slower, but has the advantage of adding a bit more AOE to her attacks. Their skill trees develop their abilities very differently as well. Yuito gets the ability to quickly recover when he gets knocked down very early, allowing to quickly get back into close range; while Kasane’s earliest power-ups enhance her ability to do air combos. She gets an early double jump and air dash that she can use to extend her air combos in ways that Yuito can’t until much deeper into his skill tree.
The differences in their campaigns are even more profound. While their paths do cross occasionally, leading to similarly structured missions that both characters share, the two are on completely different platoons of the OSF (Others Suppression Force), which means you’ll be consistently interacting with a different set of party members depending on whether you’re playing with Yuito or Kasane.
As impressive as this all was, there were still a few disappointing bits. Even though Yuito and Kasane go on different missions with different characters, they generally traverse the same locations, which does make a lot of the missions feel very same-y, even though the context and dialogue of the missions are very different. It’s an issue that’s made worse by the fact that the levels themselves are very bland to look at. I saw lots of empty streets, parking lots, and construction yards with very little personality.
Of course, these are all just impressions after just about four hours into a game that seems like it has quite a lot of meat on its bones. Nevertheless, I left my preview very eager to dive right back into Scarlet Nexus and learn more about its characters, worlds, and see how deeply I can sink my teeth into its fast and frantic telekinetic combat.
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Mitchell Saltzman is an editorial producer at IGN. You can follow him on twitter @JurassicRabbit
A good gaming chair does quite a bit more than a basic office chair, and the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition gaming chair offers pretty much all of the extras you can expect from a serious gaming chair. This racing-style seat, like many of its competitors, doesn’t come cheap. At $530, it’s even more expensive than the Secretlab Titan Series that tops our recommendations. So, let’s see how well it justifies its higher price.
As I mentioned, this is a racing-style chair. Like many of its competitors, the tall backrest has the rearing-cobra look to it. It’s designed for use at a desk, with five 3-inch caster wheels that roll silently. The wheels have a PU coating that AndaSeat says prevents damage to hardwood floors. I haven’t seen any new damage to my flooring, but the wood floor in my apartment didn’t start out in pristine condition either.
The AndaSeat Fnatic Edition is a large chair. The seat rests on a piston that offers 2.24 inches of height adjustment, which surprisingly feels like a lot more range in practice. At its lowest settings, I feel like I’m almost squatting, and at its highest setting, there’s a little more dangle to my legs than there should be.
Its size and specs definitely make it a big and tall gaming chair. The company recommends it for users between 5’10” and 6’10” and weighing less than 330 pounds, though it can support up to 441 pounds. The Fnatic Edition is nearly identical to AndaSeat’s Kaiser 2 chair, just with some different exterior materials. Curiously, AndaSeat recommends users be 5’6”-6’8” for the Kaiser 2. I’m 6’3” and about 230 pounds, and I feel as though I’m on the upper end of the chair’s comfort range. Knowing that, the Kaiser 2’s ranges do feel more appropriate for the Fnatic Edition to me. That said, comfort could be an issue for heavier or broader-hipped gamers. This chair has a somewhat aggressive bucket seat that can put some uncomfortable pressure on my thighs, which gets a bit tiresome after some time.
Part of what helps make this chair capable of holding up so much weight is the solid steel construction and heavy-duty piston and base. But, the result is a chair that’s a bit over 70 pounds. If it’s going to live in one spot, that may not be an issue, but it can be a real doozy to lift over the edge of a carpet or a stray cable on the floor.
The AndaSeat Fnatic Edition has plenty to round out the experience. 4D armrests provide adjustments vertically (just under three inches), horizontally, rotationally, and front to back. You can further expand or narrow the armrests at the connecting point on the bottom of the chair, though this is tedious to do. I have a broad build, and even the armrests’ narrowest position feels a hair too wide. The armrests are fairly large and somewhat soft, but not really cushioned in any way.
The seat is packed with a dense foam and wrapped in a sturdy-feeling PU leather. I haven’t sat in the chair on a scorching summer day, but the material doesn’t feel the most breathable and gets a tad sticky on skin when wearing shorts.
The seat also includes memory foam-packed neck and lumbar pillows. The lumbar pillow simply sits in a nook on the backrest while the neck pillow runs straps through two holes at the shoulders or around the headrest. The through-hole position is far too low for me, but around the headrest is a much more appropriate fit.
There’s also some strong relaxing functions. It not only has a backrest that can recline 160 degrees, but the whole seat can also rock. This lets the backrest go into a deep recline while angling up the seat and armrest so you won’t slide out. That full recline is far enough back to be scary, but still felt surprisingly stable. The rocking function has an adjustable resistance, and it can be locked in place.
There’s plenty to like here, but it all lines up a bit too closely with the Secretlab Titan Series. That chair is more than $100 cheaper and offers a 5-year warranty, giving it a strong edge on the AndaSeat and its 2-year warranty.
Assembly
Assembly of the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition is fairly straightforward and only requires one tool that’s included in the box. The hardware that connects each part feels high quality, and each bolt is easy to initially thread by hand thanks to large bolt heads. Given that this chair is more than 70 pounds, some of the parts are very heavy, and that can make holding one part in place while trying to thread a bolt through another part tricky to do solo. But just as teamwork helps in gaming, having a second hand to build this chair would make it a breeze. It took a bit shy of an hour to put together on my own, and I felt like I’d gotten a minor arm workout by the time I was done.
A gaming chair has one job: to make sure you’re comfortable while you’re gaming. I’d say the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition does that, but there are some qualifiers.
To start, being able to get the chair into a comfortable, ergonomic setup is essential. Since the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition has excellent positional flexibility in terms of seat height, recline and tilt, it’s scoring strong marks here. The armrests prove far better than those that simply lock in place. They could afford to go narrower or have more padding, but they still make it easy to position at the right height for a comfortable reach to a desk while supporting my arms. The rotation also helps a little when I need to get both hands on a keyboard. The height adjustment can be somewhat finicky though, occasionally struggling to lock into place at the highest position.
That issue with locking is inverted when it comes to the backrest, which really doesn’t like having any pressure on it when I first pull up the recline level. The peccadilloes add up for the seat and backrest. As I’ve already mentioned, the neck pillow isn’t as easy to get in just the right position as some chairs that use a vertical strap system, and it’s even worse for the lumbar pillow. Nothing really holds the lumbar pillow in place, so I have to regularly slide it back up to where I need it until I lean forward and it inevitably slides back down.
When everything is positioned just right, the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition can be really comfortable, but it doesn’t stay that way for as long as it should. For a couple hours of serious gaming, it can be a worthy companion. After that, I find the pressure from the sides of the bucket seat becomes bothersome. Fortunately, the foam in the seat itself doesn’t disappoint.
During longer sessions, the firm arm rests become a point of small discomfort as well. The wide spacing of the armrests is also particularly suited to keyboard and mouse gaming, but it’s a bit too wide to stay optimally comfortable when I’m spending a lot of time typing or gaming with a controller.
These are small issues though, as many of the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition’s closest competitors aren’t doing much differently, and it’s still a lot more comfortable than many basic office chairs. But, the AndaSeat Fnatic Edition doesn’t exist in a realm of its own, and the Secretlab Titan Series offers an incredibly similar feature-set while remedying some of the issues I’ve run into with AndaSeat’s option – namely the aggressive bucket seat and the lumbar pillow that just won’t stay put. Since Secretlab does that while charging less and offering a longer warranty, it’s clear to me the AndaSeat can only be a runner-up.
‘Several’ games in the SteamWorld series are currently in development at the developer now previously known as Image & Form.
Announced on the Image & Form Twitter account, the developer announced that not just one, but multiple new SteamWorld games are in the works. Image & Form also announced that it was formally rebranding as Thunderful Games, bringing it closer in line to it s parent company:
Howdy! We’re thrilled to share that several new SteamWorld games are in the making!
With this in mind, we’ll dedicate this space to SteamWorld games old and new! Image & Form is @ThunderfulGames nowadays. Same folks, new name! Follow us there for news on The Gunk and more games! pic.twitter.com/FQPpXS1t9i
— Image & Form is home Questing! (@ImageForm) May 12, 2021
In 2018, Thunderful Games was founded to bring together indie studios Image & Form and Zoink Games under one umbrella. Then, in 2020, Thunderful Games also acquired Coatsink, creators of Jurassic World Aftermath and Esper. Now Image & Form itself has become Thunderful Games, with the company assuring fans that it’s the “Same folks, new name!”
The next game to come out from Image & Form / Thunderful Games will be The Gunk, exclusively for Xbox Series consoles, scheduled for later this year.
Image & Form built its reputation working on games for Nintendo platforms, with SteamWorld Tower Defense launching on DSiWare in 2010. But the series has since grown to become a popular and recognised franchise, spawning SteamWorld Dig, Dig 2, Heist, and Quest – and has shipped games on pretty much all major platforms. While the games themselves differ wildly, all of them are adventures led by charming, steam-powered robots, with the latest game, SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech, launching in 2019.
Whilst we don’t yet know what the new SteamWorld games will be, Image & Form has tried its hand at everything from tower defense, to platformers, and even card games. Whatever direction the team heads in next, fans can remain satisfied that the SteamWorld franchise is set to continue.
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Liam Wiseman is a Freelance News Writer at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @liamthewiseman
Apple is now making MacBooks that come packing the company’s own silicon instead of Intel’s. The Apple-made chip is the M1, and it’s been universally praised for its massive speed bump over the previous generation of Intel-based Macs and MacBooks. Basically, if you’re in the market for a new Mac, you want an M1 Mac.
Here’s where you can find them, including where you’ll get the best deals available now. For instance, the entry-level MacBook Air is currently marked down $100 at Amazon, and the MacBook Pro is $150 off.
Above, you’ll find all the best deals available on M1 MacBook Air, M1 MacBook Pro, and M1 Mac Mini. If you want to spec out the machines yourself, you can do that at Apple (see below), but you won’t get any discount.
Amazon tends to have deals on a revolving selection of M1 Macs. If you don’t find a discount on the one you want right now, you can always check back later. The timing of the discounts and which models are on sale is generally either pretty random, or timed to price match other retailers’ sales.
While Apple almost never offers discounts on its computers, it is the only place where you can spec out the machine to your exact preference. If that’s worth paying a little more than you might at another retailer for an out-of-the-box machine, go for it.
What Is the M1 Chip?
The M1 is the first chip Apple has ever designed specifically for a Mac. It’s a system on a chip, or an “SoC.” It includes a processor, I/O, security, and memory, all in one package.
Apple also developed the latest Mac operating system, MacOS Big Sur, to work efficiently with M1 Macs. With the hardware and software both designed to work together, the idea is that Macs and MacBooks can now achieve higher performance and better power efficiency than ever before. And, judging by the reviews of M1 Macs, Apple seems to have succeeded.
For years prior to the M1, Macs have run on Intel chips. While those machines worked just fine, the M1 Macs really are a major improvement. These machines run faster and cooler than their Intel-based predecessors.
Because they run cooler, Apple no longer even includes a fan in the M1 MacBook Air. In its place is an aluminum heat spreader, which is completely silent. The M1 MacBook Pro has a fan, but reviewers say it virtually never kicks on. If your previous Mac ever sounded like a jet engine that was about to take off, these new M1 models should be significantly quieter.
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Also as a result of M1 chip’s efficiency, these Macs get significantly better battery life than previous models. Apple says the M1 MacBook Air gets up to 18 hours of battery life, while the M1 MacBook Pro can go for up to 20 hours between charges.
The main drawback to the system-on-a-chip design is that, like most Mac models in recent years, you can’t upgrade the internals after purchase. That’s why it’s important to get a Mac with all the storage and memory you think you’ll need throughout the life of the machine.
But overall, all of these M1 Macs have been getting stellar reviews, citing big performance jumps over previous models. And as more and more apps get updated to take advantage of the new silicon, they should perform even better.
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Chris Reed is a commerce editor and deals expert at IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @_chrislreed.
