PS5 – Ratchet & Clank: Insomniac Reveals Why the Performance RT Mode Was a Last Minute Addition

Insomniac Games has revealed that the last-minute addition of the Performance RT mode in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart was the result of multiple teams working together to extract as much as possible out of the PlayStation 5.

The Performance RT patch was originally released just six days before the launch of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. It was one of three modes available in the game, with the other two being a Fidelity mode and a standard Performance mode. The team didn’t have much to say about the new mode other than the fact that it offered 60FPS gameplay with ray-tracing enabled.

Thanks to a new newsletter from Axios, we now know why this impressive mode was added to the game so close to launch. The answer is quite simple: it was legitimately a last-minute discovery. According to Axios, Insomniac director of core technology, Mike Fitzgerald, said it was the result of teams across multiple Insomniac departments working together to push the PS5 as far as they could.

“There’s no point, say, in the middle of production where we say, ‘OK, engine’s locked, good luck, game team, finish your thing and we’re going to move on to the next thing,'” Fitzgerald said. “We have the whole core technology team focused on the quality of Ratchet & Clank until a month after it ships.”

Fitzgerald said that it’s toward the end of a game’s development that you learn how much performance can be pushed out of a console. He also said that having multiple performance modes in Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the remastered version of 2018’s Spider-Man put the pressure on the Rift Apart team.

“We knew, OK, well people are going to expect this [multiple performance modes] out of the next game,” Fitzgerald said. “We do, too, but it’s built for (the PS5), so how are we going to find that extra?”

The developer wizards at Insomniac Games made it happen, though, just in time for the game’s launch exclusively on PS5. Check out our thoughts on the game in IGN’s Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart review and then watch IGN’s Rift Apart PS5 performance review. Read about how Insomniac developers took to Twitter after Rift Apart’s launch to praise the lack of crunch at the studio after that.

Wesley LeBlanc is a freelance news writer and guide maker for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter @LeBlancWes.