The Ratchet & Clank franchise is almost 20 years old and thanks to the recent success of Rift Apart, it doesn't look like the series is going anywhere anytime soon. During these two decades, the Ratchet & Clank series has given us a whole host of colorful characters and hilarious villains all with captivating backstories.
The future trilogy was Insomniac's way of further exploring the birthplace of the titular heroes. However, Ratchet and Clank aren't the only ones that have been given interesting origins as many of their allies and rogues have even better backstories which explain how they became the memorable characters that fans have grown to know and love.
10 Emperor Nefarious
Emperor Nefarious is the dimensional counterpart of Ratchet and Clank's nemesis Dr Nefarious who makes several appearances throughout the series. He is the main antagonist of Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and differs from Dr Nefarious in that he successfully conquered his home dimension and declared himself supreme ruler.
Emperor Nefarious's backstory isn't as fleshed out as the Dr Nefarious from Ratchet and Clank's dimension, but the game implies that Emperor Nefarious's dimension had fewer heroes and was less resilient than Ratchet's allowing him to overthrow it with relative ease. Rivet tells Ratchet and Clank that the empire was created before she was born and that almost everyone in the universe worked for Emperor Nefarious in some capacity.
9 Alonzo Drek
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Alonzo Drek also referred to as Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek is the main antagonist in Ratchet & Clank (2002) as well as the 2016 re-imagining. In the original game, Drek was a ruthless dictator that used his Blarg army to invade and destroy planets, so he could harvest the pieces to create a new home world.
Drek is from Orxon which was an industrial planet that expended all of its resources thanks to Drek industries using them all up and polluting the world beyond repair, making it uninhabitable. Drek's backstory is fairly simple, but that doesn't detract from him being a great villain as he nearly succeeds with his plan and manipulates the galaxy into letting him get away with it.
8 Alister Azimuth
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Alister Azimuth is a Lombax that appears in Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time (2009). He was friends with Ratchet's father, Kaden, and witnessed Emperor Tachyon's purge of the Lombax race. Azimuth had many adventures with Ratchet's father and later became an elder councilman at the Center for Advanced Lombax Research.
Azimuth was passionate about protecting the galaxy so when the Lombaxes were approached by a mysterious inventor that claimed to have ideas about advanced technology capable of making Azimuth's vision a reality, he was keen to hear him out. Despite Kaden objecting to the idea, Azimuth granted the inventor, which later turned out to be Tachyon, full access to Lombax technology. With this Tachyon built his imperial army and banished the Lombaxes to an alternate dimension while Azimuth was forced into exile.
7 Ratchet
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Ratchet is one half of the iconic duo and so his backstory is one of the most developed in the series. He was originally born on the Lombax home planet of Fastoon but was sent away by his father when Tachyon began to attack the Lombaxes. As a result of this Ratchet is unaware of his family and their sacrifice until he discovers the truth in the future trilogy.
Fans were introduced to Ratchet on the planet Veldin which is where his father sent him. He originally had no ambition to be a hero, although he still looked up to Qwark, and only got caught up in the ensuing adventure because of Clank's arrival and his desire to explore the galaxy. Ratchet eventually learns the truth about his race and family which gives him a new motivation to rescue them.
6 Clank
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Much like Ratchet's origin, Clank's backstory has evolved as the series has progressed. Clank was born on one of Drek's production lines that were developing sentry bots and his mother was the computer that helped to create these robots despite her disdain for Drek. Clank found out about Drek's plans and escaped the factory which is where the first game picks up from.
However, Clank's story is built upon in Ratchet & Clank: A Crack In Time, where it is discovered that Clank's soul was created by Orvus who was the leader of the Zoni and the architect of the great clock. Orvus watched over Clank's adventures with Ratchet and eventually taught him about his intended role as senior caretaker of the great clock.
5 Captain Qwark
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Captain Qwark is the galaxy's favorite superhero who portrays himself as a brave and noble hero but in reality, he's a coward that often switches sides when it suits him. He was originally an antagonist in Ratchet & Clank (2002) but has since become an ally to the duo when he's not being captured and held prisoner.
Qwark's parents died when he was young which led to him being adopted, and he later attended school with Dr Nefarious who he bullied. He was still in the ninth grade at 26 years old but eventually became a superhero after taking a three-week correspondence course where he got the name Captain Qwark.
4 Percival Tachyon
Percival Tachyon is the crowned prince of the cragmites and the main antagonist of Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction. His motivation was to destroy the Lombaxes and return the cragmites to their former place in the galaxy.
The cragmites were banished to another dimension by the Lombaxes during the great war however Lombax miners found Tachyon's egg on a comet, so decided to raise him as one of their own. Tachyon eventually learned the truth and swore revenge against the Lombaxes, so he tricked Azimuth and raised an army which he used to invade Fastoon. He is responsible for killing Ratchet's father, Kaden.
3 Rivet
Rivet is Ratchet's dimensional counterpart and makes her first appearance in Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart where she teams up with the duo to put a stop to Emperor Nefarious's plans. Not much is known about Rivet's past, but she did join the Resistance movement in her dimension.
Rivet attempted to sneak into Emperor Nefarious's tower but was ambushed by a warbot that blew off her arm which made her hesitant around robots from that point on. She then built her own robotic arm and developed a rivalry with the pirate Pierre Le Fer who is Rusty Pete's dimensional counterpart.
2 The Plumber
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The Plumber is unlike other characters in that very little is known about him despite his numerous appearances in the series. He crops up in various places throughout the universe where he is often seen repairing mechanical devices and offering advice to the duo.
The Plumber breaks the 4th wall a few time with the first example being in Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando (2003) when he says that he'll see the duo in "a year or so" referencing the release of Up Your Arsenal (2004) in which he appears again. He also appears within Clank's memory banks during A Crack in Time (2009) further suggesting that he has abilities beyond that of an ordinary plumber. Series writer TJ Fixman did have a reason on why the plumber appears in every game, but it was never revealed before he left Insomniac.
1 Dr Nefarious
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Dr Nefarious is a robotic scientist and the main antagonist of the Ratchet & Clank series. He is the arch nemesis of Captain Qwark and hates all organic lifeforms in the universe despite originally being one.
Nefarious went to school with Qwark and considered him a friend despite being bullied by him, but the two later developed a rivalry when Qwark thwarted several of Nefarious's plans. During one of these schemes, Qwark accidentally knocked Nefarious into his own machinery which transformed him into the murderous robot with a lust for universal domination that fans of the series have come to know.