Tech Demo

Having finished Jedi: Survivor, I’ve moved on to checking out Ratchet & Clank: A Rift Apart. Though not one of the launch titles for the PlayStation 5, I remember a lot of the buzz around its release praising it as showing off just what the PS5 is capable of. Playing it now, finally, it really feels like a tech demo – but what a lovely tech demo it is.

It’s graphically gorgeous, with a bright, dense world packed with details and life. Character animations are joyous, feeling more like an animated movie than a typical video game. The power of the PS5 is on full display as you bounce around a seamless, ebullient world. 

The capabilities of the PS5’s new controller are on full display too. Its range of vibration captures footsteps and explosions with aplomb and, more than that, its adaptive triggers make the game’s varied weapons feel distinct. There’s pushback on the trigger that allows for different ways of firing and aiming weapons, as well as using their wacky (and colorful!) extra functions. It’s cool, and I feel like not nearly enough games make use of those adaptive triggers.

I think that may be part of the reason Rift Apart feels like such a tech demo. The adaptive triggers are one of my favorite features of the PS5, but due to it being intrinsically tied to the machine’s hardware. A game that relies heavily on a unique controller is harder to port to other systems — consider how games for the Wii were often radically reimagined when ported to or from the systems. Designing for one system in particular cuts the project off from a wider audience and potentially end up in a developmental dead end — any game that made full use of the PS Vita’s rear touchpad is gonna have a hard time doing the same on any modern platform.

But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try, even though the risks are too high. With game development time and costs rocketing, it means that rapid iterations and trying something new are more costly than ever; there’s not as much room to experiment. So when a glorified tech demo like Astro’s Playroomor Rift Apart comes out, all the better! I want games that try things and push the PS5’s features! But then, I also think the PS5’s controller and its adaptive triggers are one of the coolest things about it; so maybe I’m just biased.

Either way, game’s still a lot of fun.