Rift Apart's Rivet was originally going to be called Ratchet as well
Insomniac Games' Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart was a huge success for the company and the PlayStation 5. This is thanks to many things, but one stand out aspect of the game is undoubtedly Rivet, a fellow Lombax and all round awesome addition to the series. However, when workshopping ideas for Rivet, the team had a variety of names for her including… Ratchet.
Chatting at GDC (via IGN), Insomniac lead designer Mark Stuart said: «For a while we switched to her just being named Ratchet. After all, she and Ratchet are technically dimensional counterparts. Ratchet is a non-gendered name.»
However, this soon made the game very confusing, so this idea was ultimately scrapped. «For example: 'Ratchet needs to rescue Clank from Ratchet, who doesn't trust Ratchet and has a long history battling Nefarious,'» explained Staurt.
«At a time where story treatments were being rapidly iterated on, it was hard to tell what dimension you were in, but also which Ratchet you were talking about.»
Other names for Rivet included Ratchette, but the team decided this was «too diminutive», and it only reduced «her existence to a gender-swapped Ratchet».
Finally, the team used the codename of Gadget for a period of time. However, many felt that this name was too 80s, citing Inspector Gadget and Gadget from Chip 'n' Dale: Rescue Rangers as examples of the name in other media.
Thankfully, the name Rivet was eventually suggested and, needless to say, it stuck.
In addition to chatting about her name, Staurt also touched on the gameplay ideas the team had for Rivet.
Initially, the idea was for her to be a «survivalist beastmaster.» However, this was soon scrapped as many felt that the idea of a nature-loving female lead was a bit of a «trope.»
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