Astro Bot is a platform video game developed by Team Asobi and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 5. It features an adorable robot hero on a mission to rescue his scattered crew across the universe. An extra level of difficulty can be found in the semi-hidden trial-like stages found by exploring among the overworld’s stars, though.
Hopefully this game convinces Sony to revive their older IPs and even look to create more amazing single player experiences such as this. Astro Bot might be the best game out right now to make use of the DualSense special features. The use of haptic feedback, adaptive triggers, and gyro controls makes the game’s simple mechanics shine even more as it adds so much to the gameplay. Not only this, but the game even makes use of the controller’s speakers to make the game even more immersive. They look smooth and flow well, and it’s worthy to note that the bots’ special animations representing their respective characters also add so much to the character representation in the game.
Whether for licensing reasons or just to make a fun guessing game, the bots are given coy names like Dad of Boy (Kratos), Spinning Marsupial (Crash Bandicoot), and Immune Survivor (The Last of Us’ Ellie). There are some deep cuts that will have all but the most encyclopedic of PlayStation fans scratching their heads. They gradually fill up the desert crash site, turning this hub world into a bustling Sony museum. In a way, Team Asobi — Sony’s go-to tech demo developer and maker of Astro’s Playroom and the upcoming Astro Bot — has been doing this kind of preparatory work for the last 12 years. From 2012 to 2020, the Tokyo-based outfit made small games, often distributed for free, whose purpose was to demonstrate the interactive potential of Sony’s hardware. The Playroom demonstrated the PlayStation Camera; The Playroom VR and Astro Bot Rescue Mission the PlayStation VR headset; Astro’s Playroom the PS5’s DualSense controller.
Astro Bot Rescue Mission
Vibrant colors make me feel like I’m in a cartoon, but Team Asobi doesn’t flatten its environments or skimp on detail. In one level, I start by walking across swaths of bright green foliage. TG88 feel the crunch of the grass between my metal feet and hear the sound from my DualSense’s speakers. Then I move on to a metallic checkerboard floor, where I hear my legs lightly click-clacking on the tiles.
Crash Site Vip Bots
If the father and son Doucet saw at Yodobashi Camera is an indication, Astro could very well be on his way to familiarize a younger audience with the PlayStation brand. Releasing alongside the game is this limited-edition Astro Bot-themed PS5 dualsense controller. It’s just as adorable as the little robot itself, but it’s probably out of stock everywhere. Team Asobi studio head Nicolas Doucet thanked his development team and PlayStation for believing in Astro, and also paid tribute to Nintendo, recalling how he played Super Mario Bros as a child. He also offered a nod toward 30 years of PlayStation history, which formed the foundation of Astro Bot’s gameplay. To challenge Bully Space Nebulax, the final boss of the game, you must first complete every main planet across all galaxies.
Platform
As you explore galaxies to find your fellow robots and unlock new parts of the game, you’ll find a lot of familiar elements, only to see them executed in quirky and delightful ways. Just about every platformer has an ability that lets you shoot across longer distances, but none of them let you do it by strapping a bulldog to your back. Many of the bots — 173 of them, to be precise — are dressed as characters from PlayStation games past and present. They’re digital collectible figures, Funko Pop alternatives for 30 years of PlayStation gaming, celebrating almost every Sony property you can think of. Naturally, you’ll find Ratchet and Clank, Kratos, and Nathan Drake here; third-party heroes with a PlayStation connection, like Metal Gear Solid’s Snake and Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter, are also represented.
While it may seem simple enough, there are a lot of things to do in the over fifty levels Astro Bot has to offer. Check every corner, hit every object or look below every platform and you may find a secret cord or passageway to a Puzzle Piece, Bot or even a Vortex to a secret world! Because the in-game gallery of characters uses pseudonyms for each of them, we’ve labeled them with their proper names and mentioned which series they belong to. Whether you’re still tracking down all of the secret characters in Astro Bot or you just want to see if your favorite character made it into the game, here’s a roundup of all the secret bots we’ve found so far.
Not only is this often key it to progressing through a level, but can also lead to secrets and Easter eggs, fun interactions, and hidden collectibles. Unlike ASTRO’s Playroom, ASTRO BOT is a standalone, full-sized adventure that offers over four times more worlds, 300 bots to rescue and dozens of new powers and features to discover. Developed by Team Asobi and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, “Astro Bot” is set on 80 levels in six galaxies across 50 planets. The small robot must save fellow bots from danger, totaling 300 bots to rescue throughout the game. There are more levels like the Ape Escape one, in which Astro fully absorbs the personality and toolkit of another PlayStation hero and romps through a level based on that character’s own games. I won’t spoil them, but they all achieve a surprisingly deep synthesis of their inspiration (often a more mature-styled game) with Astro Bot’s tactile world, adorable characters, and toothsome gameplay.