On Thursday, Sony’s State of Play livestream teased out all the company’s gaming plans for the rest of 2024.
It was mostly a letdown.
Outside of a few updates on remakes like Silent Hill 2, remasters like Until Dawn, and a PC port of God of War: Ragnarök, there were only a handful of new games to show off, the biggest of which was Firewalk Studios’ Concord, a new multiplayer shooter whose CGI-only trailer failed to show players much gameplay, leaving audiences mostly confused as to what the game really is.
The sole bright spot was the final announcement of the stream, a cutesy platformer starring a chibi robot called Astro Bot. Now, this is something to be excited about.
Astro Bot is the first full-fledged platformer game for the character, who previously has served as PlayStation’s ambassador for new technology by appearing in tech demos paired with new hardware releases. Astro first appeared in simple form in 2013’s The Playroom, a collection of augmented reality games that came packed with the PlayStation 4 to show off the console’s PlayStation Camera and DualShock 4 controller capabilities. He’d get top billing for 2018’s Astro Bot Rescue Mission, another minigame-centric title made to showcase the capabilities of the PlayStation VR headset. His most recent appearance was in Astro’s Playroom, which served as a pack-in title for a new console with the PlayStation 5 in 2020.
Now, Astro is making the leap into his very own full game. But why does anyone care about a faceless robot that only appears in PlayStation tech demos?
Firstly, he’s goddamned adorable. Despite having a pixelated screen for a face, Astro embodies the pint-sized theatrics of a Pixar character with slapstick behavior and emotive body language. Astro’s Playroom took advantage of the PlayStation 5’s horsepower to create a visually arresting world with the titular bot at its core, and in the process showed players that modern gaming could rival the look of most big-budget animated movies.
Astro’s Playroom was ultimately a big ad for PlayStation. It’s a short game, taking maybe three hours to complete, and it’s set entirely within a PlayStation 5 console with individual biomes that focus on utilizing each of the system’s features like the DualSense controller’s adaptive triggers or motion controls. Players must learn how best to use the system’s functionality to clear the levels, along the way crossing over into scenes recreated playfully from the brand’s biggest franchises like Uncharted, God of War, and Resident Evil. You’ll even collect PlayStations 1-4 and dozens of old pieces of tech from Sony’s history for a visual museum.
It’s actually a lot of fun. As a self-serving celebration of all things PlayStation, it’s not subtle. But as a family friendly platformer, it plays well and is surprisingly engaging. It’s not quite Sony’s answer to Mario, but it shows the potential of what could be.
That’s what has fans riled up about Astro Bot. Billed as having over 50 worlds to explore, it looks to be PlayStation’s first attempt in a long time at breaking back into the “mascot” platformer genre that defined much of the brand’s early success with games like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon on the original PlayStation. And while the previous tech demos poked fun at the brand’s other franchises with cheeky appearances of bots dressed like its most famous characters, Astro Bot looks to be going the full Kingdom Hearts route, which its protagonist jumping into the various worlds of different games to adventure alongside chibi-bot versions of Nathan Drake, Kratos, and more. From the trailer shown, gameplay looks to follow the basic movement, combat, and exploration aspects of Playroom, but on a grander scale. Other details, like the length of the game or new mechanics remain unknown.
This kind of game featuring a brand ambassador-type character is mostly a thing of the past. Outside of Nintendo’s Mario, most of gaming’s big mascots have fallen to the wayside over the last two decades as military shooters and fantasy sci-fi epics leaning toward a mature audience have taken over the industry. Characters like Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon, once closely associated with the PlayStation brand, are now free agents popping up occasionally cross-platform for remasters or legacy sequels.
PlayStation’s previous attempt at reigniting the mascot merchandising fever, LittleBigPlanet’s Sackboy, mostly fizzled out as the series tapered off following 2014’s LittleBigPlanet 3 and 2020’s Sackboy: A Big Adventure. Even Sega’s Sonic the Hedgehog is on life support as the now third-party publisher cranks out Sonic games of all shapes and sizes without ever landing on a solid vision that will lead the speedster into the future.
With little competition, it’s the perfect time for a new challenger to rise and bring back the video game mascot wars of the Nineties, a task perfectly suited for Astro. Having headlined the pack-in title accompanying every PS5 shipped, he’s already in over 50 million homes worldwide. It’s a tactic that made Mario a household name and could be the catalyst for a new franchise’s ascension.
Someone, somewhere, in a Japanese boardroom is surely already planning Astro’s transition to a cross-media takeover. There’s good money to bet that you’ll see Astro Bot come to theaters this decade. And amid the fall and winter wave of gruesome AAA action games to come, Astro Bot might just be the candy-colored relief players need this holiday season.
So, embrace Astro, for he is the arbiter of things to come.
