A few days before Ratchet And Clank: Rift Apart launched, its official Twitter account tweeted a crossover image of the lombaxes and Fizzie, the loveable and largely forgotten-by-the-masses mascot of Sunset Overdrive. This led to Fizzie’s official account - unverified, of course - breaking its three year radio silence to reply. Sunset Overdrive fans went into overload.
Unfortunately, I knew the truth. I was under review embargo, but Fizzie was simply a reference to the interdimensional powers of the RYNO 8, and possibly the collectible Overcharge cans too. The account would go on to bring up Sly Cooper, Uncharted, and Horizon, again referencing the RYNO 8’s dimensional rifting and the collectible Lorbs. Sorry to pour cold Overcharge over your dreams, but I don’t think it’s a hint at a new Sunset game.
I wish it was. Sunset Overdrive is a game I adore, and because no one else seems to have played it, I never get to talk about it. If you like Pokemon or Red Dead or The Witcher or Minecraft, you’ll always be able to bring those up around your fellow gamers. Talk about Fizzie and all you’ll get in a Conor McGregor-style “Who da fuck is dat guy?” response. I should probably put how much I love Sunset Overdrive into perspective - I think it’s the best Xbox exclusive of all-time. Yes, better than Halo and Gears. Better than Fable (just). My favourite game of the whole last-gen was Marvel’s Spider-Man, a game that borrowed so much from Sunset Overdrive it seems like fate was conspiring against Xbox.
Microsoft funded Sunset, Insomniac produced a banger, but poor advertising and teething problems with the Xbox One’s launch meant no one really played it. Sony then bought Insomniac, and the studio made basically the same game but slapped a Spider-Man sticker on it, and it joined the ranks of Sony’s killer apps.
There were some legal shenanigans behind the scenes which might have helped put paid to a Sunset Overdrive sequel too. It’s nothing untoward, but like any triple-A contract, it can be quite complicated. Microsoft helped find Sunset’s development, and in turn, Sunset was an exclusive. It wasn’t a first-party Xbox studio, but the game was always designed to be made for Xbox. It’s still on Game Pass now. However, when Sony bought Insomniac, it bought all of Insomniac’s assets, which included Sunset. The studio still owned the game after all, it just had a separate deal with Microsoft to keep it in the Xbox family.
We don’t know the details of this deal. Sunset Overdrive 2, if it ever existed, would likely be a PS exclusive. But where does that leave the first game? That it’s still on Game Pass suggests Microsoft holds some form of ownership, but Bethesda games have slowly been making their way off PS Now and onto Game Pass since the acquisition - Deathloop will be the last Bethesda game that’s a PS exclusive too. Is Sony simply running down the clock on Sunset Overdrive? Will we see the first game come to PlayStation soon, maybe as a PS+ title, to test the waters ahead of a sequel? Or is the RYNO all we’ll get? Sadly, I fear it’s the latter.
Insomniac apparently did not crunch on Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, and it’s clearly a studio that works best when given the freedom to explore its own ideas. That’s probably true of most studios, although few ever get the chance. A Spider-Man sequel that unites Peter and Miles’ stories is surely next, followed by a Rift Apart sequel. Without changing what Insomniac is - a change that will surely influence its games - I don’t see how, in our finite world of resources, during a pandemic, a non-crunching studio could find time to make a sequel to a phenomenal but heavily overlooked game that currently only exists as an exclusive for their current owners’ rivals.
I love Sunset, but taking everything into account, I’d rather Peter, Miles, Ratchet, and Rivet were the future of Insomniac. Luckily, Rift Apart respects Sunset Overdrive enough that it feels like a sequel - or at least as close as we’re ever going to get.
Both games have a chaotic array of weapons, silly humour, and use rail grinding to get around - these are staples of each game so it’s not like Rift Apart stole it from Sunset, but it definitely feels as if it’s something more than ‘just like old times’. This is the most kinetic Ratchet & Clank I’ve ever played, and while the whole series is energetic, none embraced movement quite so much as Rift Apart. This isn’t the first post-Sunset Ratchet game (that would be 2016’s sort-of reboot, Ratchet & Clank), but it feels like the first Ratchet to have paid attention to Sunset Overdrive. There’s no exploding teddy bears or bowling ball guns, but this is as much of a spiritual successor to Sunset Overdrive that we’re ever going to get, at least from Insomniac.
The obvious comparison is Spider-Man, but I just don’t see it - the movement systems are completely different, the combat is armed rather than hand-to-hand, and none of the individual planets feel either like Manhattan as a whole nor Miles focussed interpretation of Harlem. While one planet goes a little bit Titanfall 2, Torren IV clearly takes cues from Sunset Overdrive, not only using rail grinding as one way to get around, but actively building the world around it. It’s not on the scale of the bases in Sunset Overdrive - nothing like the roller coaster - but it’s pretty damn close.
I would dearly love a Sunset Overdrive sequel, but I just don’t think one is on the cards. Insomniac is too busy and I’m not sure anyone else could do it. But if Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is the closest we’re getting, that’s good enough for me. I just hope one day Fizzie can rise again for real.
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