Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart hasn’t been out very long, but fans are already loving it. The PlayStation 5 exclusive game has brought the long-lasting franchise into another console generation with impressive visuals and a compelling story. Fans have reunited with old favorites like Ratchet and Clank, but have also been introduced to new characters. Jennifer Hale and Courtenay Taylor, two well-known voice actors within the gaming community, signed onto the Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart roster by voicing two incredible new characters. Hale is the voice of Rivet, a female Lombax, and Taylor voices Ms. Zurkon, a robot weapons merchant.
Rivet and Ms. Zurkon are alternate dimension versions of Ratchet and Mr. Zurkon, respectively, but they’re both unique characters that hold their own. Even though they’re “alternative” versions, they’re still incredibly different and fun to get to know in-game. In an interview with Game ZXC, Jennifer Hale and Courtenay Taylor discussed what makes Rivet and Ms. Zurkon strong female characters and how their experiences helped bring them to life.
Why Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart’s Rivet and Ms. Zurkon Are Strong Female Characters
There is unfortunately an abundance of “strong female character” stereotypes found throughout video games, but Hale and Taylor have been able to lend their voices to some of the most groundbreaking video game women. Hale is the voice behind Mass Effect’s Commander Shepard, a revolutionary character in video game history. FemShep set the blueprint for a lot of female player characters today. Taylor is Jack, a female character who appears in Mass Effect 2 and breaks a lot of preconceived notions about what it means to be strong and feminine.
Comparatively speaking, Shepard and Jack are remarkably different from Rivet and Ms. Zurkon. What makes the category of “strong female characters” so interesting, though, is it’s becoming widely accepted that female characters can be strong in a variety of different ways. Rivet and Ms. Zurkon break the “strong female character” stereotype, just like Shepard and Jack, but in a much different way.
Hale knows that Rivet has a dark, heavy past, but what makes her so different is that she doesn’t live in her past. She carries that heaviness with her, of course, but it doesn’t deter her from continuing to be optimistic when facing obstacles. Ms. Zurkon is a strong female character in the sense that she’s a “bull in a china shop,” but also has a sweetness about her that makes her fun and endearing. Taylor remarked that Ms. Zurkon is “having a great time, which is a big departure from a lot of the characters that [she’s] played.”
She's optimistic and she's fierce but she's not overbearing. She's determined without being heavy all the time. She's just so, so fun. —Hale
How Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart’s Rivet and Ms. Zurkon Developed
When asked about how Rivet and Ms. Zurkon were influenced by previous characters Hale and Taylor had voiced, they remarked that drawing on previous experience is something voice actors do regularly. There wasn’t one character that influenced Rivet or Ms. Zurkon’s characterization—it was more so that they drew from their personal skill set. That being said, Rivet kind of falls in line with other characters Hale has voiced in the past, while Ms. Zurkon was a complete departure for Taylor. However, for Ms. Zurkon especially, there was a lot of collaboration between the Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart writers and Taylor to give Ms. Zurkon the fun, boisterous personality she’s got now.
It was a wonderful collaboration that the team that I worked with were very much open to ... that kind of trifecta of you and them and what you make together, that's the point of the triangle and I love that because ... it's a really juicy, fun experience when they're like, "Whatcha got? Great, let's put it together with what we got, and we'll make a thing." —Taylor
Hale and Taylor couldn’t praise the writers of Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart enough. For them, the writing really stood on its own and made it easy to find the voice of Rivet and Ms. Zurkon. Funny enough, Ms. Zurkon’s sides had her as more of a cool character, and while Taylor adores her, she wouldn’t exactly say she’s cool. The way Rivet was written made it easy for Hale to connect to her and bring her to life in the booth.
Taylor and Hale have a ton of characters in their repertoire that fit into the “strong female character” trope, but none quite like Rivet and Ms. Zurkon. As for Rivet continuing in the Ratchet and Clank series, both Hale and Taylor hope to see her come back in future installments. Rivet and Ms. Zurkon were both incredibly fun characters for Hale and Taylor to tackle, and that joy is evident as players encounter them in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart.
Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is available now for PS5.
