Nick Astalos (born: May 23, 1998) is an American YouTuber and Twitch streamer known for his discussions, analyses and opinion pieces of the popular video game franchise 'Ratchet & Clank'.
Early History[]
Nick created his channel on October 1, 2016 and uploaded his first video on October 2, 2016. His channel was formally known as "Zephick" before changing it to "Nick Astalos" some time later. From 2016 to 2018 his videos consisted of mainly short playthroughs for a various amount of games along with a few unboxings and vlogs. His channel didn't see much growth until he started making videos about Ratchet & Clank towards late 2019.
Channel Growth[]
On October 8, 2019, Nick Astalos uploaded a video titled "A New Ratchet And Clank Game Is Coming (Everything We Know)". This came to be his first widely successful video, helping increase his subscriber and total view count considerably over the following months. It is also his first of many Ratchet & Clank videos. Nick has repeatedly said that 'Ratchet & Clank: A Crack in Time' is his favorite game in the franchise and later that month on October 29, 2019, he uploaded a video titled "A Decade Of A Masterpiece: Ratchet And Clank Future A Crack In Time" which came to be his most viewed and successful video of all time with over 49,000+ views. After October 2019, Nick's channel experienced consistent growth in subscribers and total view counts over the following months thanks to the success of his Ratchet & Clank videos. In March 2020, Nick reached a channel milestone of 1,000 subscribers and in June 2020, he hit another channel milestone of 2,000 subscribers. The announcement of 'Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart' and the videos Nick has created to follow it with, has helped his channel grow considerably.
The Ultimate Ratchet & Clank Playthrough (URCP)[]
The "Ultimate Ratchet & Clank Playthrough" or URCP for short, is a series of 100 percent playthroughs done by Nick Astalos of all the Ratchet & Clank games including the spin-offs, mobile games, mangas, comics and any game that has featured Ratchet & Clank. Originally Nick decided he was going to record the whole URCP for himself and upload it to YouTube but later decided he would stream challenge mode and the 100 percent clean up runs onto Twitch and only record the first playthroughs for YouTube. However, Nick has stated the entire URCP will still be edited and uploaded onto YouTube. The announcement of 'Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart' being a launch window title for the PS5 had disrupted his original plans for the URCP as it would mean he would have to finish the URCP considerably earlier than intended. He officially started the URCP on May 16, 2020 and uploaded his first longplay of the URCP on May 17, 2020.
Twitch and Streaming[]
Shortly after uploading his first longplay of the URCP onto YouTube, Nick streamed challenge mode of 'Ratchet & Clank (2002)' to Twitch. From there on, along with the URCP, he started streaming a variety of different games whenever while he built a solid community on Twitch. Nick has focused a lot of his free time to Twitch and streaming and now has a schedule of streaming every Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday at around 12pm-5pm PST. Nick Astalos is a Twitch affiliate and currently has over 800 followers on Twitch. His main moderator is Alados5, he does a lot for the stream and is very appreciated by Nick and his fans.
Mental Health[]
Nick has been suffering from a range of mental health related issues. He has talked about his issues before on stream but on January 2, 2021, he uploaded a video to address his mental health issues directly to his YouTube audience. Nick suffers from OCD and ADHD, but he became really depressed in 2020. He said it has interfered with his productivity and negatively affected his channel as he can't make as much videos or stream as much as he'd like to. He stated that the upcoming release of 'Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart' has helped him greatly for coping with his mental health issues and battling through his depression.