The New Ratchet & Clank Game Is a Free Mobile Hero Shooter, and You Can Pre-Register Today

Ratchet and Clank fans have been asking for a follow-up to Rift Apart for five years, and this week PlayStation finally showed what the series does next. It is not a PS5 sequel. Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble is a free-to-play multiplayer hero shooter for phones, and pre-registration is now open worldwide on the App Store and Google Play.

Video: Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble on YouTube

What Ranger Rumble actually is

The game is developed by Oh BiBi, the mobile studio behind FRAG Pro Shooter, working in collaboration with PlayStation Studios and Insomniac Games. The premise is a clever bit of cover for the genre shift: Captain Qwark has built a combat simulation to find the next generation of Galactic Rangers, and every match takes place inside it. That framing lets the roster mix familiar faces with brand new Lombaxes and other recruits without touching series canon.

At launch there will be 12 playable heroes, with more promised later, spread across six game modes. Those include squad based team PvP, PvE fights against waves of enemies, a battle royale inspired mode and, somewhat unexpectedly, a football inspired showdown. The series' trademark over-the-top weapons are the core of each hero kit.

Pre-registration and rewards

Signing up on the App Store, Google Play or the official site counts toward global community milestones. As each one is hit, everyone who registered unlocks in-game currency at launch, Qredits, Reebos and Raritanium, and if the final milestone falls, an exclusive Clank Suit skin for the new hero Widget. The game has already run regional soft launches in Canada, the Nordics, France and parts of Asia, but there is still no global release date.

Our take

We understand the groans. A mobile hero shooter is about as far from the sequel people wanted as this franchise could get, and free-to-play mobile monetization has earned every bit of the skepticism it attracts. That said, writing it off entirely feels premature. Insomniac is directly involved, the soft launch approach suggests Sony wants this polished before it ships wide, and the art in the reveal is unmistakably Ratchet. Pre-registering costs nothing and locks in the milestone rewards, so if you have any curiosity, there is no downside to signing up now. Just keep expectations calibrated: this is a companion piece for phones, not the next mainline adventure, and Sony has announced nothing about a new PS5 entry.