Astro Bot is excellent, but it’s not without its flaws. Mechanically and aesthetically, Team Asobi’s platformer is sublime, but the circumstances of its existence paint a bleak and uncertain picture of PlayStation’s future. It’s propelled by an assembly line of cute cameos and themed levels that reference franchises past, present, and future. Many of them haven’t seen the light of day in decades, and as such, they leave Astro Bot feeling like a graveyard rather than a loving celebration.
Now that the honeymoon period is over and most of us have seen the credits roll on the platformer, it’s become the subject of precious criticism. Away from the snappy controls, delightful visuals, and creative level design lies an experience that would be fundamentally different if it didn’t draw inspiration from all things PlayStation. What would Astro Bot be like if you didn’t have to rescue robots dressed as Crash Bandicoot and Kratos every two minutes? Could that game stand on its own two feet without leaning on the shoulders of giants? We already know it can, as Astro Bot Rescue Mission has done before.
Prior to Astro's Playroom and this fully-fledged standalone title, Astro Bot appeared in two PlayStation 4 bundled titles (The Playroom and The Playroom VR), before establishing himself as a standalone game with Rescue Mission, a PlayStation VR title that, upon its release, was praised as one of the best platformers in recent memory.
It used the medium of virtual reality to deliver a crisp, responsive experience that was completely untethered from PlayStation history. It created its own universe and attempted to draw us into its mix of evil aliens and adorable robots, keeping us spellbound until the very end.
Dear Sony, please don't release Astro Bot 2 as a launch title for the PS6 and build on the new console and tell us how awesome it is. You can take this universe to much more exciting places.
We have concrete proof that Astro Bot can achieve brilliance without the aid of nostalgia, he is simply a natural fit for such inclusion. Astro Bot is a cute little genderless robot that can represent any character you can imagine, from Nathan Drake to Klonoa to Aloy. I hate myself for thinking of this comparison, but they are the gaming equivalent of Minions. You save one, smile with glee, and go back to the hub arena to punch him in the face and watch some canned animation.
The experience is empty without the anchor, and there’s a legitimate fear that it reduces Astro Bot to nothing more than a cute cash grab brought to life by corporate nostalgia. But as someone who grew up with the PlayStation and has recognized more cameos in it than I’m willing to admit, Team Asobi has done something bigger than that.
The Asobi team said that creating such an expert chronicle of PlayStation history will hopefully encourage players, both new and old, to go back and experience classics like Ape Escape, Ico, The Legend of Dragoon, Sly Cooper, and countless other PlayStation gems for the first time. Perhaps they had heard of these names through word of mouth once, or perhaps Astro Bot has revealed that the well of PlayStation is much deeper than The Last of Us and God Of War.
Its current library may be defined by narrative blockbusters and live service failures, but restarting that conversation about variety could be the start of a sea change. Sony will take the success of Astro Bot on board, especially in contrast to the disastrous failure of Concord, and perhaps be the canary in the coal mine for something fresh or exciting that it steals from a past that has long been rejected. Modern video games have been so focused on an uncertain future with fancier graphics and bigger budgets for so long that they’ve forgotten how, when the basics are done right, the results can be magical.
Astro Bot is the most celebrated exclusive of the current generation because it not only knows how to make video games fun at the most basic level, but it also respects a legacy that has been rejected for decades. It took Team Asobi to remind us what makes the PlayStation brand so special, and I have no doubt that it can go further without relying on nostalgia.
Whatever happens to the blue-eyed robot, I imagine it will find a balance between the two, with themed levels that coexist with an original story where you explore levels that are entirely unique in their execution. There will always be bots to save in Astro Bot, just as there will always be stars to collect in Mario, and at this point, that feels like an integral part of the series' identity.
The fact that Team Asobi is relying so heavily on nostalgia to bring Astro Bot to life isn’t a good thing, but if that kind of complacency is what it takes to bring PlayStation back to life, or to give many of its big names and mascots a second chance at life, it’s a price I’m willing to pay. And if they decide to go in a different direction, past games have proven that Astro Bot is more than capable of holding its own.
