A recent interview with the director for Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart has revealed some new information about the PlayStation 5. One of the newest features added to the PlayStation UI is the addition of activity cards, that offer game hints, helpful video guides, and estimates on how long it will take to complete a chapter or section of a game. Well as it turns out, those helpful activity cards are actually using real player data to offer these guides and times.
The activity cards, which show up on the console’s home menu, are a great way to break down a game into activities and make tackling a difficult level a bit easier. When hovering over a game’s icon on the home menu, the cards are activated and the player is offered cards that share small clips on how to overcome a level’s obstacle, information on certain collectables in a game, and an estimate for how long a level will take to complete. While many might believe these estimates are based on what the developer’s feel is an appropriate time, the cards are more complex than that.
Related: Every Collectible Trophy In Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart And How To Unlock Them
Speaking with Axios on Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart’s game difficulty settings, Insomniac Game’s director Mike Daly offered up information on how these activity cards work. As Daly explains: “They’re derived from an estimate set by developers that is then compared to other players’ average completion times for the task pulled by the online PlayStation Network, and then further personalized with a check of the player's pace playing the game."
For Rift Apart, these activity cards worked well with how the developers wanted to approach difficulty. Daly shared that the game’s team worked on making the game more accessible, explaining "We no longer think about, like, 'What will make the most elite players feel good about themselves?' And more like, 'What will enable everybody to have the experience they want to have?' Because that's sort of the most important thing to us."
It seems the team behind Rift Apart made the right decisions regarding accessibility and difficulty, as the game dominated the sales charts last month, doubling the launch month sales of the previous Ratchet & Clank game.
