by Ratchette, Ratchet and Gadget were all possible names for the new Lombax.
While 2021 is being described by many as a quiet year, there have still been a number of games we’ll be talking about for years to come. It Takes Two, Returnal and Guardians Of The Galaxy to name a few. PlayStation also hit us with a handful of exclusive titles, the most notable of which is Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. An ambitious project for a number of reasons, including the fact that it’s a PS5 exclusive when the console was extremely hard to come by.
Despite the lack of next-gen consoles, Rift Apart was a hit. One of the best parts of the sequel was the introduction of Rivet, a female Lombax from another dimension. Ratchet fans spent the months leading up to Rift Apart’s release guessing Rivet’s name, and for a time simply referred to her as Girl Ratchet. Turns out those who called her weren’t far from her name before the Insomniac team landed on Rivet.
Insomniac’s Mark Stuart revealed during an in-depth GDC chat (via IGN) about Rift Apart that the first name Rivet had during development was Ratchette. Eventually, they decided that it looked too much like Rivet being little more than a female Ratchet, and then changed Rivet’s name to Ratchet. That’s right, the new Lombax had almost exactly the same name as the game’s protagonist. This quickly became a logistical nightmare, as you can imagine.
“In an age where story treatments were rapidly being repeated, it was hard to tell which dimension you were in, but also which Ratchet you were talking about,” explained Stuart. As having two Ratchets became more and more confusing, the team decided to change the name from Rivet to Gadget. That stuck for a while, but some involved in the decision-making highlighted how many times Gadget had been used on fictional characters in the past.
It was after that someone casually tossed out the name Rivet during a meeting and everyone loved it. It wasn’t long before Rivet was officially named after it, and you’d be hard pressed to find a better name for the new Lombax. There’s no word yet on what’s next for Ratchet or Rivet. Hopefully gray Lombax and her sidekick Kit will return in future games, or maybe even get a spin-off of their own.
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