There’s not much else to say about it except that it’s pretty much perfect for the game’s vibe and presentation. Gaming Copilot is now live in the Xbox mobile app (beta), offering real-time AI help for gameplay, achievements, tips, and more. To proceed, all I have to do is run forward and rub a magic lamp by moving left and right. When I slowed down, though, I began to appreciate just how much I could play with in the little town before moving on. I could knock over a stack of buckets, sending hundreds of bolts into the sand. I jumped on a clothesline and watched as I skidded over towels, which fell from their wooden pins with a satisfying cartoonish twang.

Because of that success, there are likely plenty more Astro Bot titles in Team Asobi’s future. PlayStation 5 launched four years ago, shipped with a pack-in game known as Astro’s Playroom – a brilliant platform game full of heart and creativity that captured the imagination of new PS5 owners. Many of us dreamt of a full-blown sequel that could expand these ideas into a larger adventure and that dream has finally been fulfilled with Astro Bot. Let me say this up front – Astro Bot is so good, it single handedly reminded me why I enjoy video games in the first place. This is a game that celebrates the entire history of video games and one of the few 3D platform games I’ve played that truly goes toe to toe with the best Nintendo has to offer. One of the biggest announcements during last week’s PlayStation State of Play livestream was Astro Bot, the full-fledged sequel to the excellent Astro’s Playroom that comes preinstalled on PS5.

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Team Asobi has teased that tools will eventually be added to Astro Bot that should appeal to speedrunners. With that tool and a bit of post-launch content updates, Astro Bot’s fun could last a lot longer than it does, and that would be a welcome inclusion for a game with a short run time. Still, any frustration with the game ultimately stems from wanting more of what Astro Bot provides, which at its core is a top-tier platformer with innovation, charm, and enjoyment to spare. In this way, Astro Bot gates a small but not insignificant portion of its best material behind a skill check that some of its audience won’t pass. Its best attribute, a rumble feature more nuanced than what other controllers provide, is also simpler than all of the DualSense’s high-end abilities that sometimes come off as gimmicky. Astro Bot also did away with some of them from Astro’s Playroom, such as using the center touchpad to unzip some blockades.

An unconscious Astro and the mothership crash-land onto a desert planet while his crew and the mothership’s core systems are scattered across the universe. Astro’s Playroom is just pure, unadulterated fun, and Astro Bot somehow manages to better it in just about every way. Playing as the titular Astro Bot, it’s a title that finds you encountering a rude alien as you fly through space in your PS5 console-shaped craft. Soon your slick method of transport has been robbed of its important innards, causing it to crash land on a desolate planet. Now you’ve got the arduous job of visiting the star systems nearby, rescuing your robotic friends that got flung far and wide in the whole affair, and ultimately rebuild your ship.

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Those devs are also real gamers with passion and vision who made tons of classic and unique games back then. Sony seem to misunderstand and think everything needs to be a 100 million, 60 hour epic in order to sell. They could easily fund 3 or 4 quality 20 hour titles (see uncharted lost legacy, Miles morales) for a fraction of the cost and at significantly reduced development times. This is what Shawn Layden called for all those years ago, but he seems to have been ignored.

Fans of PlayStation history will be very tempted to spend more time on each stage thanks to the many nods to past franchises and moments. Astro Bot levels challenge players to collect all the stranded bots, but there are other things players will want to keep an eye out for as well, like coins and puzzle pieces. Everything players collect goes to Astro Bot’s hub world, the Crash Site.

Astro Bot from TeamASOBI took the most important round of applause of the night, and with the most precious award of the event, the Game of the Year. Arriving September 6, 2024, Astro Bot is a direct sequel to Astro’s Playroom and looks to bring all its colorful platforming and more to a full-fledged game. Astro Bot is only confirmed for PS5 so far but so were a hoard of other PlayStation exclusives now available on PC. Sony has made a point of expanding its player base and sales by bringing franchises such as The Last of Us, God of War, Spider-Man, and more to the platform. Astro Bot’s Digital Deluxe edition also has several exclusive items, including 10 more PSN avatars, a digital art gallery, and a digital soundtrack. It also lets you unlock Astro’s Yharnam Tourist outfit, Golden outfit, and two more Dual Speeder paint colors early (all the outfits and paint colors are available in the base game, too).

So, congratulations on your well-deserved award and success, Team ASOBI. I’m indebted to you for pulling me back into the world of platformers. IGN, among other major gaming outlets, praised ASTRO BOT’s revolutionary approach to platforming. The game’s success at The Game Awards 2024 ceremony marks a new era for PlayStation Studios and Team ASOBI. You’ll need a PlayStation 5 console and sufficient storage space (approximately 50GB). The game is optimized for play on 4K displays but supports all PS5-compatible displays.

A sequel, Astro’s Playroom, was released for the PlayStation 5 as a launch title that is pre-installed on every console and serves as a tech demo for the new DualSense controller. When it’s all done I’m left with that strange feeling of being very well cared for. But when I close my eyes I see the tumbling fruit, the hundreds and thousands, the gems stacked so high I can kick through them as if I’m wading through autumn leaves. I think, more than anything, of all the glorious bits and pieces. The gimmicks introduced in the game are reminiscent of Super Mario Odyssey’s level design, where stages have a central gimmick that you have to work around.

Astro Bot is a showcase of a developer working at the top of its game, but most importantly a developer that keeps fun and playfulness at the forefront of everything it does. Finally though I want to highlight the fantastic score, because like its levels, it bounces around genres, delivering consistently catchy head bobbers, on top of slightly remixed versions of iconic Sony soundtracks. I know this OST is going to be in my regular rotation once it finally drops on Spotify, because it’s simply too good to leave locked within this game. Five new levels are already planned to be added to Astro But starting on July 10th, further expanding the number of courses and bots in the game.

The game is visually stunning, has great sound design, has simple yet fun gameplay, makes use of the exclusive PlayStation controls, and, most importantly, has a ton of content. Sony and Team ASOBI have knocked it out of the park with this game, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this game is regarded as one of Sony’s best releases to date. In its never-ending chase for maturity and realism, the video game industry is leaving kids behind.

Some distinctive PlayStation-themed bots — think one wearing Aloy’s red hair or Kratos’ beard — serve a more special purpose. When you rescue them, they can give you that character’s power and take you to a special level modeled on a game like Horizon Zero Dawn or Uncharted, so detailed that they’ll even include side quests from the original. And I defy you to feel something other than the warmest nostalgia during the final boss fight and credits sequence — I didn’t know just how much emotion a PlayStation Move controller could make me feel. I won’t talk about the other buildings players can build in Astro Bot’s hub world, but rest assured they are great as well, giving players extra incentive to hunt down every single collectible. The bird costs 200 coins, so players have to give up some gacha pulls to use it, but it’s a great way to keep players from getting stuck. Spending coins in the game’s shop unlocks dioramas, ship paints, and costumes for Astro, even some based on unexpected series such as Bloodborne and Gravity Rush.

Astro Bot doesn’t care about such baggage, but if it did you’d probably use your mechanical arms to throw it at a giant robotic ape before smashing in said ape’s teeth and propelling yourself into its soon-to-be exploded head. Astro Bot only cares about fun, and I genuinely can’t think of a single moment it made me wish something had been handled differently, tweaked to be easier, or expanded upon. Very tight of Sony on that as on my series x, as long as it is my home console all that log in get cloud saves through my subscription. I hope it is something Sony are going to do more of in the future. It means a family or friend can play on my profile and get cloud saves as well using one of the save slots. If you have any lingering questions about the game, this section of our Astro Bot guide should have you covered.

On the flipside, speedrunners should enjoy Astro Bot as well, since it offers planets of platforming challenges with incredibly responsive controls. The simplest way to describe Astro Bot is honestly to compare it to Mario, as it employs a similar kind of “world” structure. There are six themed galaxies you’ll explore, each of which is filled with a handful of main story worlds, hidden extra levels and challenges, a boss battle, and a final world themed after a prominent PlayStation franchise. mb66 is such a wonderful experience, it makes me question if I’ve ever felt this much pure joy playing other games I’m fond of. From its tight design to its incredible visuals to mechanics that feel carefully tested to generate as much pleasure as possible, Sony has its new standard bearer for platformers.

The boss fights deliver on visual spectacle, have a nice challenge to them, and above all, are fun to conquer. Besides the main bosses, mini-bosses pop up in other levels unexpectedly, and they are also a lot of fun to fight. Like Team Asobi’s previous games, Astro Bot revolves around a community of tiny white robots. Following the events of Astro’s Playroom, they are attacked by the evil green alien that served as the final boss of Rescue Mission, destroying their PS5 spaceship and scattering them across the cosmos. After acquiring his DualSense controller ship, Astro has to travel to various galaxies and rescue the bots. Each galaxy you arrive in houses several secrets to uncover in the overworld, and even levels themselves have hidden bonus stages.