Initially, like many of you who may read this, I was wondering where the collection was and why Sony hadn't released it yet. I mean, it's one of the highest-selling PS2 franchises, and one of the only ones to make the jump onto the current gen. After doing a bit of mind-raking to figure out what the wait was for, I came to a realization, one that made me feel completely stupid, being a huge fan of the series.
Our beloved Lombax and his robotic companion are turning 10 this year. I completely forgot about this, which made me almost ashamed to be a fan (who forgets the decade anniversary of his/her favorite series?). I'm now assuming Sony is going to wait until E3 to announce it, and spend most of the advertising campaign calling it a "celebration for the beloved franchise," or something along those lines, and it will be slated for a Fall 2012 release. (My supporting theory as to why they hadn't announced it yet was because there was simply no time to; there have been a surprising number of HD collections, and there was no suitable launch time for it.)
Now, onto the release date. As I said above, I believe it will be Fall, but I have a more specific date in mind. I looked at the (U.S.) release dates for each major installment of the Ratchet series, and only one falls on a Tuesday (the day of the week where nearly all games launch in the U.S., for those of you who don't know) this year. The game is the first of the Future trilogy, Tools of Destruction. It also signified the end of the original Tetralogy of Ratchet & Clank. What's a better date to celebrate the PS2 games than the date that the first PS3 game launched?
This all being said, it's still a theory. I could be completely wrong, for all I know. I just figured this may help give hope to anybody still holding out for an R&C collection.
You might be right. It's been speculated already that Sony would wait to drop the bomb on Ratchet and Clank's re-revival at E3 this year.
With all the HD updates coming in this way and that, it would be fortuitous for Sony to capitalize on this rising wave of favorites. We now have the Jak collection available. It's imaginable that it'll only be a matter of time until Ratchet and Clank make way for an HD re-release too.
I've heard about some speculation of a new R&C, but I'm assuming Sony will follow the same path they did last gen. They first did four Insomniac games, with the last diverging from the gameplay set up by the other three. They then diverged into two PSP spinoffs made by different companies. Once the PS3 Ratchets came along, they made four games (I'm counting Quest for Booty, because had Insomniac not worked on Resistance, that likely would have been a full game with a longer/better story), with the last also diverging from the gameplay set up by the first three. I'm guessing that Sony will have High Impact and/or another company do two PSV games to promote the new handheld, while Insomniac works on OverStrike and Outernauts. I'm hoping that Insomniac's not done with the series; they've been very mum about the whole thing, so either they're making a new one or they haven't decided yet. Maybe this year will just be the HD collection while Insomniac gets its bearings as a Third Party developer.
