I’ve been a supporter of Insomniac Games ever since I played Spyro the Dragon on the original PlayStation that still sits proudly beneath my TV. Therefore, it was a genuine Pleasure to meet the company’s President, Ted Price, at gamescom in Cologne.
First of all, I was keen to hear how it felt to finally spill the beans on the two PlayStation 3 games, Ratchet & Clank All 4 One and Resistance 3, that they have been secretly working on.
“It’s a relief!” Ted replied. “Our fans are very vocal on the forums about what we’re doing and now we can finally confirm that we are making these games and that they are going to be awesome.”
It has been a huge year for Insomniac Games an I was also set on finding out how important it felt for them to reassure PlayStation fans of their commitment to their big first parties IPs.
“We’ve had such a great relationship with Sony over the years that we felt it very important to remind people that we’re still great partners and that we still have great franchises that we’re working on,” he said. “What we’re going to see what from Ratchet & Clank and Resistance is going to be fresh; I think that we’ve demonstrated that at the SCEE press conference.”
I started asking about Resistance and asked why they have opted to debut the game via a live action trailer.
“That was really to set the tone; to give people a taste of what of what’s coming with Resistance,” he said. I asked whether this is something we can expect to see in the full game but, with a smile, was told that we’re not talking about that.
So, moving onto Ratchet & Clank All 4 One, I asked where the idea of co-operative gameplay was borne.
“Co-operative gameplay is something we have been talking about for a long time. We have experience with co-op with Resistance and it’s a natural fit for Ratchet because there are so many people who love to play Ratchet & Clank games with friends or siblings, and we have so many characters that naturally work well together. However, I have to tell you that this is being made by Insomniac North Carolina and I’m sitting back and helping with advice here and there, but they’re really driving this.”
It was hinted in the press conference that the game would be ‘co-op with a competitive edge,’ so I asked Ted to elaborate on this.
“You saw it today where all of the players are collecting bolts and earning points, and we’re not talking about what they’re going to do with what they collect right now, but you can interpret quite a bit from what you see.”
It was there we left. It was a pleasure to meet one of my gaming heroes and I’m in an eternal state of wonder over what Insomniac Games will do next. In case you’re wondering too, here’s another look at the two trailers they released at gamescom:
