Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart player discovers former Insomniac developer tribute

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart
(Image credit: Insomniac Games)

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart developer Insomniac has continued its tradition of hiding a Dan Johnson figure in its games, which a player has finally discovered in the recent PS5 exclusive. 

Dan Johnson was a former artist at the studio who passed away in 2006, and Insomniac honor the dev by hiding references to him in its games. Reddit user BadBackground5778 located and shared the figure of Johnson in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart that is tucked away in one of the game's many environments. You can click the link to see where the location is, we won't mention where specifically because we don't want to spoil it for you if you go looking.

Johnson had imported his face into many of the games he worked on with Insomniac Games, starting with Ratchet and Clank from 2002. During the production of Ratchet and Clank: Size Matters, Johnson passed away, with both that game and Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction were dedicated to him. Since then, he's been implemented into most Insomniac titles either as an unlockable skin or as a cameo, which has been a fun discovery for fans of the studio.

The only titles that Johnson hasn't appeared in from the studio are Ratchet: Deadlocked and Ratchet and Clank: Going Mobile. More information on Johnson's cameos can be found on the Ratchet and Clank Wiki.

It appears as if BadBackground5778 is the first player to publicly share the discovery of this tribute to the developer. For those wanting to find Johnson without specifically seeing the image shared, a clue would be at the end of the Story Overview trailer.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart launched earlier this month exclusively for PS5 and saw a full 5 stars from our review. The developers at Insomniac also celebrated a "completely crunch-free" production as well as celebrating the series' 19-year journey with a montage trailer. The game also pays homage to other Sony Interactive Entertainment titles by introducing a gun into the game that can pull items from other PlayStation games.

With Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart sporting 60fps and ray tracing, you might be considering picking up a new TV. If so, we have a roundup of the best Prime Day TV deals.

Ben Bayliss

I'm partial to an action adventure RPG such as Skyrim and Cyberpunk 2077. I enjoy the occasional open-world driving games and even those skateboarding titles. But really, if any game I'm playing has a photo mode, I'll likely be found snapping pictures of anything and everything.