Insomniac Games CEO discusses evolution of Ratchet series

Insomniac Games has a full plate – a new IP on the way (Fuse), and newly launched Facebook game (Outernauts) and a retired IP (Resistance).

Despite this, CEO Ted Price says their oldest franchise, Ratchet and Clank, they’re not ready to let go of just yet.

“We never know exactly how or when interest will wane in any particular franchise that we do. So far interest certainly hasn’t waned in Ratchet,” he said. “And for us it’s still an incredibly fun franchise to build.”

Eurogamer asked Price if the more recent Ratchet games have enjoyed the same success as the early ones, to which he responded, “They’re doing really well. The challenge is how do you equate that in an industry that’s so different now than when we started building Ratchet games? When we started building Ratchet games we had one console that dominated everybody. Today the industry is spread out in terms of the platforms that are available.”

Price goes on to discuss the evolution of the series over time.

“Ratchet started as a kitchen sink game where we’d do a ton of different things in terms of mechanics, in terms of mini-games. It’s just a plethora of stuff that’s been shoved together. And we’ve become better at narrowing the focus for the Ratchet games over the years. I think it will always be a game that is about multiple mechanics.”

The next Ratchet game slated for release, Q-Force, will use this broad attitude to game mechanics to make their latest iteration revolve around tower defense. Price said the team focused their attention on building this premise, rather than trying to do many things at once.

“It would be easy to get distracted putting a hoverboot track in the game or do space combat or something that has nothing to do with making an awesome tower-defense game combined with Ratchet’s original mechanics. That would be a mistake.”

Finally, Price noted that he’d like to evolve Insomniac’s newest IPs, Outernauts and Fuse, into full series in their own right.