PlayStation just announced at State of Play that the original Ratchet & Clank will arrive on PS4 and PS5 via the PS Plus Classics Catalog later this year. It's a little bizarre that we got Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank before the first game, but hey-ho, it's finally happening.
Hopefully, this is a sign of things to come. It took Sony seven years to bring the entire Jak and Daxter series to current-gen, after all — starting with the original trilogy in 2017 and ending with the PSP spin-off Daxter in 2024. Judging by the slow rollout of the Jak games and even the Sly Cooper sequels, with Band of Thieves and Honor Among Thieves arriving four months after the first game, it'd be a surprise if we didn't eventually see the rest of the Ratchet & Clank PS2 games make their way to PS5, too.
All that's left from the PS2 era now are Going Commando, Up Your Arsenal, and Deadlocked (which I will fight to the hills arguing is Ratchet & Clank 4). Maybe then Sony can get that PS3 emulator up and running so we don't have to stream Tools of Destruction and A Crack in Time anymore, eh?
In the meantime, for new fans who got their start with Rift Apart and... the dreaded 2016 reimagining, please go back and play the 2002 original when it launches. The gameplay's a little stiffer and there's no strafing, but Ratchet has far more bite, Chairman Drek isn't overshadowed by Dr Nefarious — who desperately needs a rest — and the entire story has that snarky '00s skater culture baked in, right down to Skid McMarx and the hoverboard races. There's a real charm to its Y2K angst that the reimagining lost, and seeing how much Rift Apart paid homage to the PS2 classics that started it all, it's worth dipping your toes back in to revisit the sleazebag Qwark, explore iconic planets that got left on the cutting room floor, and hear Mikey Kelley's take on Ratchet before he was recast in the sequel.
Of course, Ratchet & Clank isn't the only classic joining PS Plus in 2026; we also have Mega Man X: Command Mission and Dino Crisis 2 to look forward to.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/ratchet-and-clank-ps-plus-classics/
