Here’s the skinny on the event: Insomniac Games pulled off an unheard-of announcement on their weekly Insomniac Live Twitch stream. Grant Parker, the senior designer, dropped a hitherto-unseen easter egg into Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart which has been open to the world for FOUR YEARS. To put that in perspective, this secret prototype mini-game has been in lining inside this crown jewel of a PS5 exclusive since then without being unmasked.
During the anniversary celebrations of four years of Rift Apart (which, by the way, even shocked a few gamers who don’t believe it’s been that long yet), Grant Parker showed the audience the ✨secret✨ stuff via the live broadcast. However, the actual full procedure of getting in there still remains murky.
The newly found secret set the fandom into a tizzy. Some gamers, like @Nick_Astalos, were screaming, “OH MY GOD I’M DOING THIS TOMORROW,” while others like @NefariousLombax called it “a super neat & expertly hidden easter egg.” In the air is all this excitement over which suggests that there could be many secret-level easter eggs hidden in older Insomniac games, too.
Alas, this rich broadcast news was drowned by many whose only purpose was to derail the discussions. The outbursts ranged from requests for Wolverine updates (“Where’s wolverine hurry up” – @Evangamer016) to pleading for remasters (“Remaster for PS5 Please” – @Witcher3geralt1). A classic gamer move.
But all in all, since its revelation, the discussion has taken a serious turn down the secret avenues of game development. One questioned @qqtt992 straight: “Be honest how many of these Easter-egg-type-puzzle things are in the game that people don’t know about.” Meanwhile, @GeneralChrisYT wondered aloud: “Who tf is supposed to fix this without data mining or exploits.” Quite a fair question, really, for such an ultra-hidden secret.
For the ones wanting to catch the next big reveal, Insomniac has reminded that they almost always stream on Wednesdays at 12 PM PT, and it sticks to this schedule on its Twitch channel. Can you imagine what secrets could come out? Maybe the story behind those Spider-Man 2 suits will finally be told (@WebbJarred is still bitter about that).
The timing of this is cheeky indeed. As @JimmyRowe1994 puts it, the community is “dying for a new Ratchet & Clank” at Rift Apart’s four-year anniversary. That Easter egg may be a clue towards something big, or it’s Insomniac having a little inside joke with the community. Whatever it is, the stir made by this reveal has gamers scrambling to launch Rift Apart in the hopes of hunting down this newly unmasked secret.
What we realize now is that with data mining and exhaustive game analysis, a developer can still keep surprises in their games for years. It kind of makes one think about what other secret hidden treasures might lurk in your favorite games, waiting for the perfect developer to casually bring them up on stream four years down the road.
Dust off the good old PS5, if you’ve still got Rift Apart installed, so you can dive head-first into that glorious prototype mini-game. Don’t get your hopes up for Wolverine news, though: Insomniac clearly has bigger priorities right now, like blowing everyone’s mind with decade-old secrets packed within their platformer masterpiece.
