The upcoming Ratchet & Clank follows the recent trend of local four-player same-screen games and brings that kind of gameplay to the Ratchet & Clank franchise, with what looks to be great effect. At a preview last week at gamescom we got to see the latest build.

Insomniac tell us that co-operative play was the biggest request from fans, and from Sony Computer Entertainment itself, for the Ratchet & Clank franchise, so Insomniac responded with a game that has drop-in/drop-out local co-op as well as a still-robust singleplayer mode. The game is designed around co-op though, so when you play singleplayer as Ratchet the AI will control Clank so that you can still complete the game. You can also somehow play as Clank, but we weren’t shown how that would work.

Dr Nefarious has gathered all the dangerous creatures of the universe on a planet with the intent of using them against his enemies, but they have gone out of control and the Dr has called on Ratchet and Clank to help him out of this predicament. You can play as Ratchet, Clank, Quark or Dr Nefarious himself, and each character has a special ability unique to them: Clank can slow down time, Quark has a shield and Dr Nefarious is super sneaky (although I’m not sure what that means).

You have to work together to progress through the game, with cinematic moments rewarding you when you solve a puzzle. You also can’t get left behind because if you press triangle you will ‘tether’ to your friends and catch up to them. If you die in co-operative play the worst thing that can happen is that your friends have to revive you. You earn bolts for reviving friends and there is a bit of competition in the game between players to earn the most bolts. The player with the most bolts at the end of the stage gets bonus bolts. You can buy weapon and ability upgrades with your bolts.

The bits of the game shown to us were extremely varied. It started with a 2.5D area with quite a few jet pack sections. When you’ve got your jet pack on you can slam into enemies or objects to destroy them. Next was a 3D section as per normal Ratchet & Clank. A weapon vendor was shown where you can all buy your upgrades at once, depending on how many bolts you have.

We were shown a few of the weapons: the plasma bomb is basically a grenade so you can attack enemies that are taking cover. If multiple players lob plasma bombs at once there will be a much bigger explosion. All weapons have this effect - if they’re combined by multiple players their effect is bigger. Alternatively you can combine different weapons for a tactical advantage. The Blitzer is a weapon that is basically two big gloves that allow you to punch your enemies - a powerful melee attack.

The pacing of the levels we were shown looked good. After getting the plasma bomb you have to use it to destroy a mini-boss called Mortar Minion. Then at the end of the stage you fight Wigwump, a boss that you need to use your jet pack and plasma bomb skills on - both skills you have just learned. If all players attack at once you will take out enemies much faster than each going after different enemies (both because of four times the firepower, but also because weapons are more effective altogether).

Insomniac assured us that this is a full Ratchet & Clank game, and the production values of what we saw look top notch. It has cut-scenes, a good back story, varied locations, sidepaths, creatures to collect, gold bolts to collect, other collectibles, and has been in development for three years. It will be a retail game with release on October 18 in North America (and somewhere near there for Europe). It also has online co-op, which will make it easier to round up four friends to play through the campaign (since I imagine that will be the most fun way of playing through it).

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One looks like a really fun cinematic co-op action-platformer, and I’m looking forward to playing through it with the rest of the el33t crew.

Watch the new trailer from gamescom below to see the game in action:

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