Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One

"It's time to go back to the way things were, ya know? Leave that hero stuff to the other guys."

- Ratchet talking to an interviewer.

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is an upcoming game for the PlayStation 3 developed by Insomniac Games. It will be the next game installment in the Ratchet &amp; Clank series. The game is a platformer shooter, however, it relies on a four player co-operative system where the players can choose to play as either Ratchet, Clank, Captain Qwark or Dr. Nefarious.

Plot
All 4 One takes place after the events of the comic series and two years after A Crack in Time. In Dr. Nefarious' latest plan to rid the galaxy of Ratchet, Clank, and Qwark, he holds a fake award ceremony for Captain Qwark. During the "ceremony" he unleashes a Light-Eating N'Grute on the city of Luminopolis, which is eventually defeated by Ratchet and Clank, with help from Qwark and Nefarious. However, this rare creature attracts the attention of Ephemeris the Creature Collector, and the foursome are kidnapped and dumped on planet Magnus, which Ephemeris has been using as an open-air reserve for the universe's most dangerous creatures. The team is rescued by a little girl, and with that, Ratchet and Clank are forced to postpone their vacation and set off to stop Ephemeris. With no other way to get home, Qwark and Nefarious join the heroes—begrudgingly.

Multiplayer system
All 4 One diverges from the classic Ratchet & Clank formula with the addition of a four-player drop-in drop-out co-op system. The four players can be local, through the use of multiple controllers; online players, through the use of PlayStation Network; or AI, controlled by the CPU. If there is a single player, the game will give him or her one CPU controlled player. All 4 One supports multiple PSN logins so each player is able to log into their own PSN while playing local multiplayer, allowing sync between any online stats and the game.

To accommodate inexperienced players, All 4 One uses alerts to keep online players on the same page and avoid the frustration of trying to your clueless team members what to do. In addition, each character has a appropriate color which is used to associate items and objects in the HUD with that player. To keep players aware of where their characters are, character-colored trails appear during longer jumps, and colored rings appear underneath characters in darker areas like Terawatt Forest. This is also used in more specific situations, for example, characters are tethered to King Sepiad in one gameplay sequence with colored tethers, allowing players to quickly locate their relatively small characters on screen.

Gameplay


Gameplay consists of firefights with a varied arsenal of weapons like previous games, but gameplay is largely centered around cooperative gameplay mechanics. Players will often have to cooperate and rely on each other to progress though a level, but Insomniac had been careful to keep All 4 One enjoyable at the same time. All co-op gameplay mechanics have to pass a test which Insomniac has dubbed "CAKE." This stands for:

Co-op Active for all players Kinetic Easy to understand

"We found that if we can design something that satisfies CAKE, it has a really good chance of being fun before we put any work into it," said Mike McManus, a gameplay programmer at Insomniac. "We had gameplay mechanics where one player would do something and the other three were waiting for them to do it. It was just intensely boring. Waiting around is not a lot of fun."

Examples of this co-op gameplay are sections where players must launch each other onto buttons with the Vac-U 4000, or tilt their controllers in unison to move the team so that they can escape a wind tunnel by creating the most air resistance. Some platforms act like a seesaw and will topple over if too much weight is applied to one side of a center pivot point, so players must work together to balance their weight to prevent falling off. Teamwork is rewarded though a co-op points system. For example, points are awarded when extra nanotech is passed onto a teammate who is low on nanotech.

Gameplay also involves what Insomniac calls "cinematic co-op," where action takes place in large-scale sequences. These sequences occur in "almost every level." This is extended though the use of the camera in normal gameplay. It changes position to give the optimal view of points of interest, such as a 3/4 top view of a group of enemies or a side view of a platforming section.

While cooperative, gameplay can also be competitive. The bolt counter at the top right of the screen compares players' individual bolt counts, fueling friendly rivalries and races to become the first owner of a new weapon. The Vac-U 4000 can also be used to launch players into a bottomless pit in order to get a certain item first. The aforementioned points system is meant to discourage from players abusing these competitive mechanics and acting like total jerks by rewarding cooperation. In addition, the competitive mechanics can be switched off if this becomes a problem. More casual competition exists in mechanics like Cluster Cannons, where the first player to activate the cannon gets a point bonus.

Death is not penalized, and players respawn almost immediately. If you die in combat, you can be revived with nanotech from other players. However, if the whole team dies, they have to go back to the last checkpoint.

Weapons and gadgets


Weapons are more powerful when used cooperatively. The Combuster, for example, adapts to All 4 One's cooperative nature by multiplying damage as more players fire at an enemy. New weapons like the Darkstar Fission Rifle and Thundersmack are made for multiplayer. Electric energy beams connect player's Darkstar rifles together, creating a web of electricity which can be moved around of slice through groups of enemies or damage a larger enemy. Weapon upgrades can be purchased with bolts.

Each character uses their own unique melee attack, which are all aptly named. Ratchet uses his wrench, Clank uses Clank Fu, Qwark punches enemies with his "Fists of Justice," and Nefarious uses his claws, named "Annihilator Blades." In addition, each player can perform a slam move that acts like a OmniWrench Hyper-strike. Each character also has a boomerang-like weapon which acts like a OmniWrench Comet-strike.

Old gadgets like the Swingshot also get a co-op revamp. Versa-targets are placed with a lot of space between them, so players must latch onto each other to reach the next vera-target. The Swingshot can also be used to pull a player falling to their death back up, or to perform a Mortar Slam to stomp enemies.

Each character also has an appropriate special gadget. Ratchet has the Doppelbanger, a decoy; Clank has Time Bombs; Qwark has the Quantum Deflector shield, highlighting his "not a fighter" personality; and Nefarious has a cloaking device, highlighting his sneakiness and treachery. These gadgets can be used cooperatively to help other team members, for example, by taking the pressure off of other team members with a Doppelbanger decoy.

Controls
is used as an action button in All 4 One. Some objects have a icon floating over them whenever the characters are close. Whenever a player holds, their character performs the action related to it. The Quick Select can be accessed by moving the right analog stick. Melee attacks can be performed with.

Art style
All 4 One uses a different art style than previous PlayStation 3 titles. Objects and scenery take on a cartooned appearance, and the sizes of characters have been distorted. Clank for example, was the size of a backpack in previous titles, but is now taller and closer to Ratchet's height. In addition, Ratchet lacks visible fur and Qwark's head has shrunk considerably. The HUD uses even more cartooned versions of the characters. In the HUD, Qwark's chin is exaggerated, and Nefarious' head is taller.

Characters

 * Ratchet
 * Clank
 * Commander Spog
 * Qwark
 * Dr. Nefarious
 * Lawrence
 * Cronk
 * Zephyr
 * Creature Collector
 * Skrunch (cameo only)

Weapons

 * OmniWrench Millennium 12
 * Combuster
 * Warmonger
 * Thundersmack
 * Pyro Blaster
 * Mr. Zurkon
 * Arc Lasher
 * Darkstar Fission Rifle

Mods

 * Sheepinator Mod
 * T-Rex Morph Mod

Gadgets

 * Vac-U 4000
 * Swingshot
 * Doppelbanger (Ratchet only)
 * Quantum Deflector (Qwark only)
 * Time Bomb (Clank only)
 * Cloaking device (Nefarious only)
 * Orb-o-Matic

Armor

 * Pilot Suit

Polaris Galaxy

 * Luminopolis

Planet Magnus

 * High Cliffs
 * Terawatt Forest
 * Seaside Village
 * Oktonok Reef

Items

 * Bolts
 * Boltergeist
 * Gold bolts
 * Elasta-Shock

Miscellaneous

 * Crates
 * Nanotech
 * Cluster Cannon

Behind the scenes

 * Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One was not the only title that was considered for the final product. Insomniac has mentioned there was a spreadsheet that contained over 100 potential titles. The four most popular unused titles were revealed, and they were: 4play, Multiple Organisms, Fiends with Benefits and Bros b4 Foes. Writer TJ Fixman, who is also working in the North Carolina studio said that they did not want to scare parents off with the title as the game itself is very family friendly. However, several titles were used in the Ratchet &amp; Clank comic series.
 * Micheal Bross, who has never composed music for a Ratchet & Clank game before, will be composing music for All 4 One.
 * Insomniac Games confirmed that Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is likely to include replayable missions given its co-op nature. Interestingly, replayable missions never appeared in any of the past Ratchet & Clank series games, except for Ratchet: Deadlocked.
 * Gameplay has shown that All 4 One contains suggested swearing and sexual references, similar to past Ratchet & Clank games.

Videos

 * All 4 One Gamescom trailer
 * Gameplay from Gamescom