Ratchet & Clank is a series of action platformer and third-person shooter video games. The franchise was created and developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation consoles, such as PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation 5, with the exclusion of Size Matters and Secret Agent Clank, which were developed by High Impact Games for the PlayStation Portable. The series is exclusive to Sony platforms and the intellectual property is owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. An animated feature film adaptation was released on April 29, 2016. The games take place in a science fiction setting and follow the adventures of Ratchet (a feline humanoid known as a Lombax, who is a mechanic) and Clank (a diminutive, sentient Zoni "defective" robot) as they travel through the universe, saving it from evil forces that consistently threaten it. The series is noted for its inclusion of many exotic, unique and over-the-top weapons and gadgets, a concept that Insomniac Games has expanded into their other games. History Following the development of Spyro: Year of the Dragon, the third installment of the Spyro series, Insomniac Games wanted to move into a new intellectual property, since the Spyro series was owned by Universal Interactive Studios. With the PlayStation 2 recently announced in 2000, Insomniac began to prototype ideas for games on this new console. One, called Monster Knight, never got past the prototyping stage, while a second, called Girl with a Stick and aimed to be a mashup of The Legend of Zelda and Tomb Raider series, had about six months of development work before Insomniac's CEO, Ted Price, decided to cancel it as "the team wasn't feeling it", according to director Brian Allgeier. Now in 2001 and struggling with ideas, Chief Creative Officer Brian Hasting proposed the idea of "an alien that travels from planet to planet, collecting weapons and gadgets", an idea inspired from Spaceman Spiff from Calvin & Hobbes and from Marvin the Martian. This idea inspired the team since it would allow them to create new worlds and characters to develop. Artists sketched a number of concepts for this alien character, which was originally reptilian, but ended up as a new species they called a "Lombax", a name Price had come up with. Along with this character they named Ratchet, they gave him a robotic companion, Clank. Originally developed as a childlike version of the Star