Something that I have struggled with in recent years has been my mental health. That struggle rears its head with anxiety, which is something that I have had to deal with more than I used too. My first real anxiety attack was working at my part time job in college. I had become overwhelmed with internships, test and paper deadlines, going to class, and also working to have some kind of income in college to pay bills with. I did not want to let people down or have people worry about me. I did not expect the new Ratchet and Clank to bring this memory back to me. A common theme that I found in Rift Apart (the new Ratchet and Clank game) are characters that feel overwhelmed by what they are facing.
Ratchet is hesitant to try to find the rest of the Lombax because he has not idea how they would react to them or if they are actually what he is looking for. He is scared of the unknown, which for a lot of people (including me) is the source of their anxiety. Thoughts and doubts always creep into your mind about what could happen with whatever choice you make.
The anxiety of the unknown stretches across multiple characters in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, it also comes up with regards to Rivet (the new female Lombax) and Kit. When you first meet Kit, she talks about how she only wants to stay on Savali with the monks because she will be a bad partner and does not know what what would happen with her. Kit has anxiety on how she will effect others by being a former working war-bot for Dr. Nefarious. Same thing goes with Rivet. She has anxiety about working with people. Before this game, she has always worked alone. She has always had to and in her mind she could only rely on herself to get the job done.
This is common when it comes to anxiety. Sometimes when I am working, I can struggle to share the workload with people. Not that I do not get along or not know how to socialize with people. It is more of the fact that I know that how I want it done, and don’t want to burden other people with how I want to do things and to boss people around.
Now a lot of the issues that these characters have get solved and they get their happy ending. But these struggles with mental anxiety is something that helps make these characters come to life and makes you want to interact with them in a meaningful way. Anxiety is something that a lot of people have do deal with on a regular basis. Seeing that characters that they will play in possible one of their favorite video games go through many of their own questions when it comes to dealing with their decisions and their anxieties that come with them could help, even if it only makes a tiny difference. Even in the very light way that this was done, it still was nice to see while was playing it.
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