1. All About Clank
Ratchet’s lovable companion Clank has a host of random trivia attributed to him. His birthday is October 26th, he’s a vegetarian, and he was originally supposed to be 3 smaller robots, but the animations were too tricky at the time.
2. The Insomniac Museum
Up Your Arsenal and Size Matters both feature hidden levels that are dedicated to concept art and assets that didn’t make it through to the final game. In Up Your Arsenal this content is curated in “The Insomniac Museum” and shows off weapons, characters, and challenges that were cut before release.
3. Weapon Mastery
The Ratchet and Clank series is famous for its weapon variety and ability to upgrade and modify so freely. Each weapon is totally unique and works in a completely original manner. Over the course of the series, Ratchet and Clank has amassed an impressive arsenal of almost 200 fully unique and different weapons which can all be upgraded and modified in different ways.
4. So Meta
In the title screen for Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando, the heroes can be seen playing levels from the game on a TV screen. However leave them long enough and some familiar faces will pop up. After a certain amount of idleness, the duo begin to play levels from the original Ratchet & Clank, Jak & Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, Jak II, and Sly Cooper and the Theivious Raccoonus.
5. Jak X: Combat Racing
Jak X: Combat Racing is a 2005 racing combat game on PS2. If the player has a saved Ratchet: Deadlocked data file stored on the same memory card however, they are able to unlock Ratchet as a playable racer in the game.
6. May The Clank Be With You
Ratchet & Clank has a wealth of Star Wars references littered throughout its series. However none was more obvious than the lightsaber-esque cheat on Ratchet & Clank 3 for PS2. Players who navigate to the cheat screen and enter circle, square, circle, square, up, down, left, left are rewarded as their lowly wrench is transformed into a double-ended lightsaber-esque sword. The functionality was the same but it looked a lot cooler.
7. Courtney Gears
Ratchet & Clank 3 (Up Your Arsenal) was released on PS2 in 2004 – just around the time Britney Spears was at her peak. Subsequently the ever-fearless developers at Insomniac created Courtney Gears, a boss created in Spears’s likeness who spouted the words “Oops! I did it again” during battle.
8. Japanese Ratchet Needs Some Trimming
For some reason, the Japanese version of Ratchet in Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time was designed to sport massive bushy black eyebrows. Originally this was just to be a feature in the cover art of the game, but it somehow got into the actual title. The developers argued that it was to bizarrely make the character seem more relatable to Japanese players.
9. Dan Johnson
Images of previous level designer at Insomniac Games can be found throughout the series, hidden everywhere as photographic easter eggs for the eager eyed. Though he sadly passed away in 2006, Johnson can be found in every Ratchet & Clank game apart from Deadlocked and Going Mobile.
10. Ratchet Origins
The first Ratchet & Clank title was released November 7 2002 for PS2 and subsequently won the PS2 Game of the Year Award the same year of its release.
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