Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart’s Lady Lombax is a playable character

She’s Got The Look

While there was certainly a lot of excitement and hype on the Information Superhighway following last week’s PS5: The Future of Gaming presentation, for many fans the show was stolen entirely by the appearance of a brand new, mallet-wielding character at the climax of the trailer for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart.

This mysterious and still-unnamed newcomer – who I’m dubbing Lady Lombax for now because I love alliteration – shows up at the end of the titular duo’s world-warping adventure and, although she seems to recognise our metal pal Clank, has zero idea who Ratchet is… Curiouser and curiouser.

Who is she? Where’s Ratchet? Is she an alternate Ratchet?

As is the internet’s wont, the community exploded with joy at her reveal, with some very impressive (see “tasteful”) fanart showing up on Twitter in double-quick time. While developer Insomniac Games hasn’t offered up much info on the new hero, the studio confirmed yesterday in a casual tweet that Lady Lombax is a playable character in Rift Apart. Hooray!

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart seems to be a title designed specifically to show off the capabilities of Sony’s new PS5 hardware. Its sharp textures, glossy fur, reflective metals and wealth of particles is practically a stress-test for the console’s ray-tracing capabilities, while the vast warping worlds and lack of load times are a showcase for the power of SSD storage. No doubt Haptic Feedback will be thrown into the mix too.

Using a popular platforming franchise to showcase your new console is a tactic as old as time itself. Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart definitely had an impressive debut and turned some heads, so here’s hoping that it delivers when it arrives alongside gaming’s newest generation.

Play as Ratchet AND a mysterious new female Lombax from another dimension. #RatchetPS5 #RiftApart pic.twitter.com/aMDSAB77iG

— Insomniac Games (@insomniacgames) June 16, 2020