The embargo on the publication of reviews was lifted today Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart… Along with this, a technical analysis of the new PlayStation 5 exclusive from Digital foundry… The main thing from the analysis below…
- In the very first trailer, when showing the episode where Ratchet moves through different dimensions in real time using spatial rifts, one could notice slight slowdowns when changing levels, but in the final version of the game this problem was completely eliminated. In addition, ray-traced reflections are now applied to portals, which was not in the original demo: the very case where the final game looks better than in the early trailers.
- The game ran smoother with the Day 1 patch in Ray-traced Performance and Performance modes. In addition, the update improved RT reflections – they were rendered in chess-like 4K, which significantly increased the quality.
- The main theme of the game is tied to the rift mechanics. There are several types of them in Rift Apart. The simplest ones look like spatial cracks and are often found during battles. By being attracted to them, you can move to different points of the same level. Others are portals to completely different locations and work as a window in both directions, drawing simultaneously two separate and fully functional worlds, between which you can smoothly navigate. Based on the same technique, we made a cross-change of locations in the style of “Star Wars” during the cutscenes.
- The coolest from the point of view of using the rift mechanics is the level with the world of Blizar Prime. Upon arrival on the planet, only floating debris remains from it, but blows to large crystals are instantly transferred to an alternate version of this world before it is destroyed. This mechanic is directly related to some puzzles, and switching between dimensions occurs almost instantly – a flash appears on the screen for a moment and now the player is already in another world. Technically, this is implemented in such a way that only one location is always in memory. When switching between worlds, only the character remains in memory, and maps are loaded and unloaded right on the go from the SSD. There are no tricks here, but nothing like this could be achieved on consoles of the previous generation.
- The characters with an excellent level of detail deserve special attention. Models of the main characters in their maximum quality consist of 250 thousand polygons each, not counting the wool, for the realistic implementation of which Insomniac Games used the new advanced hair system from Spider-Man: Miles Morales. In general, from the point of view of graphics and animation, the game turned out to be so high-quality that during the cut-scenes it looks like a pre-rendered cartoon, and in some places it looks even better than the Ratchet & Clank CG tape from 2016. In addition, the project makes extensive use of ray tracing, including even for rendering the eyes, with DF being particularly impressed with how reflections are applied realistically to curved mirrors.
- In terms of speed, DF will have a separate detailed breakdown shortly, but on first impressions the PS5 handles the game convincingly well, delivering a very smooth framerate in ray-traced mode at 60fps and almost flawless performance in quality mode. In the second case, we are talking about 30 FPS and dynamic 4K. At the minimum, the scaling reaches 60% of the original value, but in fact, the resolution is 2160p most of the time, with a decrease to 1800p during hot moments.
Summarizing, Digital Foundry named Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart an example of a true nextgen and a great demonstration of the potential of the PlayStation 5…
The game is already out 11th June…
Read also: The authors of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart showed a weapon that can open portals in Uncharted, Sunset Overdrive and other games…
