While you may find the rollout of smartphone shooter Ratchet & Clank: Ranger Rumble a little odd, it’s not all that unusual for mobile games.
The spin-off has been available in the Philippines for a little time already, but is now rolling out in several Nordic countries, including Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland.
This will obviously open up the title to more potential players, allowing developer Oh BiBi to collect more data on the release. It’ll be able to use this information to influence design choices, balance changes, and improvements.
Given the scale of the testing, we’d expect this game to launch officially next year, and it’s going to be interesting to see how much weight PlayStation puts behind it.
It’s clear Sony wants a foot in the potentially lucrative mobile games market, but thus far it’s been hesitant to actually acknowledge its efforts. The likes of MLB The Show Mobile and Horizon Steel Frontiers have not really been promoted by the platform holder yet.
For our money, if it wants to make this initiative work, it needs to stick its chest out. Does it want these games to succeed or not? Let’s see if it has a promotional plan in place for the new year.