Hot off of the revelation that the game can, in fact, be run without the PS5’s high-spec SSD storage, Insomniac has dropped the bombshell that Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is not only playable on the Steam Deck but is officialy Verified for the device.
That means the game satisfies four strict conditions to gain Valve’s nod of approval on its handheld device:
- Input – The title should have full controller support, use appropriate controller input icons, and automatically bring up the on-screen keyboard when needed.
- Display – The game should support the default resolution of Steam Deck (1280×800 or 1280×720), have good default settings, and text should be legible.
- Seamlessness – The title shouldn’t display any compatibility warnings, and if there’s a launcher it should be navigable with a controller.
- System Support – If running through Proton, the game and all its middleware should be supported by Proton. This includes anti-cheat support.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is Steam Deck Verified! ?
— Insomniac Games (@insomniacgames) July 25, 2023
It’s obviously great news for anyone hoping to play Rift Apart on the go, which in itself is a pretty novel idea. There will definitely be sacrifices to visual fidelity and performance to get there as well. But it’s not surprising that it’s drawn a touch of ire from commenters who’ve been critical of some of the developer’s earliest claims that the game simply wouldn’t be the same on hardware that wasn’t sporting the PS5’s speedy storage.
In fact, as VGC points out here, you’ll need to whack this game on a separate SD card if you’re planning to play it on the cheapest, 64GB Steam Deck, at which point the read speeds top out at 104MB/s on the Deck – a tiny percentage of the 5500MB/s from the PS5’s internal SSD.
Criticism of past marketing beats aside, it’s pretty cool to see port developer Nixxes go the extra mile to make this game scale from far beyond what the game originally looked like even on PS5, right down to some comparatively well-underpowered hardware so that a huge number of PC players can finally enjoy what is a stellar 3D platformer.
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart comes to PC tomorrow and you can pre-purchase it on Steam now.
