‘Ratchet and Clank’ Was “A Hail Mary” By Insomniac Games

In previous generations, Ratchet and Clank, from developer Insomniac Games, was one of Sony’s biggest and most prominent IP.

However, the series (including its iconic duo) wasn’t always the series we all recognize and cherish today. No, it used to be quite different, and while discussing the origins of it, Insomniac CEO Ted Price referred to it as “a hail mary” by the studio and revealed that it was essentially an audible after a rejected project.

“Ratchet and Clank was sort of a ‘Hail Mary’ for us,” said Price while speaking to IGN. At the time, the studio was coming off Spyro, which it loved, but was ready to move on from as its audience grew and matured.

So Insomniac hit the drawing board, and what it came up with was a linear adventure game called “Girl With A Stick,” which featured a world full of magic, fantastical beasts, and a more mature and darker tone.

Sony rejected the game and its prototype though, remarking that perhaps the team should go back to what it was good at and made name for itself doing: platformers.

So, Girl With A Stick was scratched, despite Price believing the team had something, and not long after Ratchet and Clank was born, kind of.

The idea that first began the journey to Ratchet and Clank came from one of the studio’s senior members, Brian Hastings, who pitched “a little character who has cool weapons and flies from planet to planet.” This became the game’s core concept, the foundation for brainstorming, which produced multiple different ideas on who the main characters would be.

“He was a lizard, at one point. He was sort of a ‘Marvin the Martian’ guy, which, I think, was sort of the original inspiration” said Price, “and then [Ratchet] became a furry, fox-like character.”

“Clank was originally three robots who would cling to different parts of Ratchet’s body,” added Price, but this was inevitably scrapped for being too difficult to realize into the actual game. And so Clank was changed to a single robot and “became sort of a backpack for Ratchet,” or in other words, the adorable little robot we all know and love today.

Source: IGN