Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One

Ratchet & Clank: All 4 One is the only entry in the main series that Insomniac Games designed exclusively as a co-op experience for up to four players at once. Ratchet, Clank, Captain Qwark, and the villain Doctor Nefarious find themselves forced together against a common enemy after their home planet is attacked by a previously unknown alien threat, and the game makes them cooperate despite their mutual distrust and long-running feuds from earlier entries in the series. Compared to the rest of the series, the camera shifts from an over-the-shoulder view to a fixed isometric angle tilted slightly from above, which recalls cooperative action games like Diablo more than the classic 3D platformers fans were used to from earlier PlayStation 2 and 3 entries. Development was also handled for the first time in the main series by Insomniac North Carolina instead of the central team.

This shift in perspective and the focus on cooperation also changes the level design – the arenas are built around joint puzzle-solving, shared switches, and battles against hordes of enemies that require players to split up roles, instead of the solo exploration of open planets found in the main series. Weapons and upgrades here are shared and less exotic than in the numbered entries, with the emphasis falling more on action pacing and comic banter between the four main characters than on building up a single hero's loadout. The game can also be played solo with computer-controlled AI partners, but by design it's clearly built for playing with multiple people on one screen or over an online connection, similar to co-op titles of the era from other studios. The puzzles also frequently require one player to stand on a switch while another moves ahead, a mechanic the solo games in the rest of the series don't feature at all.

Why play: For series fans who want to try Ratchet & Clank in co-op with friends on a single screen, and who don't mind the resulting departure from the classic camera perspective and solo planet exploration of the numbered entries.