Ratchet & Clank Comic-Con Recap (with Videos!)

Comic-Con was huge for Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time. On Wednesday night, we revealed the winner of the Captain Qwark’s My Blaster Runs Hot contest, the Spiral of Death, and showed footage of the weapon in the game. We also let the press try their hand at the new time puzzles that Clank will have to complete.

Throughout the course of the show, attendees could check out the Krell Canyon demo at the PlayStation booth. There were also photo opportunities with Ratchet himself, as well as swag: an inflatable replica of Ratchet’s Omniwrench 2000.

All of this built up to Sunday, when we revealed all of this and much more to the public in our panel session. Creative Director Brian Allgeier, Project Manager Bryan Bernal, and Writer Todd Fixman were joined by voice actors James Arnold Taylor (Ratchet), Armin Shimerman (Dr. Nefarious), and Joey D’Auria (Allister Azimuth). The panel was moderated by Gamespot Editor-In-Chief Ricardo Torres.

We led off with some exclusive videos that those of you playing at home won’t be able to see until the final game releases, one involving Captain Qwark, and the other an unlockable video about the Agorian Warriors. Allgeier and company then discussed the story, and its theme of “throwing caution to the wind,” especially relating to the effect of Ratchet being with an older Lombax for the first time. One of the early highlights involved a verbal spar between Taylor and Shimerman, using the voices of Ratchet and Dr. Nefarious, respectively, as they sat together on stage talk about Nefarious’s temperament issues.

Discussion then turned to Clank and his whereabouts after being kidnapped at the end of Tools of Destruction. Bernal revealed that Clank is being held at the center of the universe (give or take fifty feet), in a secret facility known as the Great Clock. Clank gains new time abilities and has some brand new indie-inspired time gameplay.

For more about Clank and the first footage of his gameplay, check out this video:

Next came a topic that is a series standby: weapons. The beginning of the discussion centered on the Weapons Contest event that occurred on Wednesday evening. The Spiral of Death was revisited and shown in case attendees hadn’t seen it. Winning fan designer Jackson Finley was recognized by Bernal, and the crowd gave him a huge round of applause. If you haven’t seen the Spiral of Death in action, check this video out:

Torres then moved onto the world reveal of a brand new line of weapons for A Crack in Time, The Constructo weapons. Brian Allgeier discussed how fans really enjoyed the ability to specifically tailor weapons to their own playing-style with modifications in Deadlocked and Up Your Arsenal. He announced two new weapons, the Constructo Pistol and Constructo Bomb Glove, and revealed some mods that longtime series fans will love – the video below shows and explains more.

The voice actors discussed their work on the game and how much fun they have had working with these characters over the years. James Arnold Taylor discussed how Ratchet’s voice is really his voice, and as such it’s really one of his easiest characters to jump into (which he did repeatedly throughout the panel). He also mentioned that it was only during this past year that he met David Kaye, the actor who voices Clank, as game voice actors typically record their sessions separately.

Armin Shimerman told attendees he generally has to take the next day off after recording Nefarious due to the amount of screaming a session involves, especially due to his perception of Nefarious screaming a lot more in this game. However, this didn’t dissuade him from screaming for the audience, including the classic yelling at his butler, “LAAAAAAAAWREEEEEENCE.” Newcomer to the franchise Joey D’Auria discussed voicing the first new male Lombax in the series, and how much he’s learned from the other voice actors, particularly Taylor. He also discussed how Azimuth’s character arc and how impressed he has been with the evolution of gaming as a storytelling medium.

We recently announced that we were partnering with DC Direct to bring fans the first Ratchet & Clank action figures. These long-awaited figures, including Ratchet, Clank, Nefarious and Qwark, were brought on stage to give fans a chance to see them before their release on December 2nd.

Before the Q&A, attendees were treated to the world premiere of the brand new trailer for the game, which you can watch below. The trailer includes the first glimpse at a new level in the game, Axiom City.

Finally, the group then took some fan questions. Highlights included a young fan who asked about the RYNO. Before anyone on the panel could answer, the fan proceeded to remind the panel of what each RYNO from each game did to crowd laughter and applause. Allgeier confirmed the RYNO as well as the Tools of Destruction fan-favorite, the Groovitron, will return in A Crack in Time. A fan asked if multiplayer would be included, to which Allgeier said the team was focused on closing the story arc started in Tools of Destruction and Quest For Booty while creating an epic single-player experience (also bringing applause). Another fan asked if The Plumber would return, to which Fixman revealed that he indeed would.

Everyone on the panel had a fantastic time. We here at Insomniac want to send a big thank you to all of our fans who came to see us and asked questions and came up afterwards to chat with us, ask for autographs, and take photos. We also want to send out a big thank you to James, Armin and Joey for taking the time to participate and see their fans. A huge thank you goes out to Ricardo Torres for moderating the panel, as well. We also are grateful to everyone at Comic-Con for giving us the opportunity and space to present new features and video directly to our fans. Finally, we want to thank everyone at Sony Computer Entertainment who helped put this together, including all of our PR/Marketing folks as well as all of the event folks who helped us out on the floor when trying to hand out thousands of inflatable wrenches.

That’s all for now – we hope you enjoyed this recap of the panel and the videos. Next up for us is GamesCom in Cologne, Germany, where we will reveal a bunch more new stuff, including the first look at our Space gameplay.

We’ll try to answer your questions in the comments – but as I’m writing this from a plane, Bryan Intihar may chime in as well.

Thanks for all your support! It was great to see so many of you at Comic-Con!
JS