Astro Bot Is a Celebration of PlayStation History That Other Game Companies Need to Learn From
With Astro Bot, PlayStation celebrates the games that turned the brand into a gaming juggernaut. Other game companies should follow suit.
As the gaming industry moves past the summer and looks to finish 2024 strong, one PlayStation 5 exclusive title has already claimed the fall season, garnering plenty of positive hype and online buzz: Astro Bot. Developed by Team Asobi and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Astro Bot is a sequel to the PS5 launch title Astro’s Playroom but offers a significantly more ambitious and fuller game experience. In addition to seriously expanding the 3D platforming gameplay and immersive level designs, Astro Bot really serves as a tribute to the PlayStation’s extensive gaming history, both in terms of direct nods to fan-favorite characters and recreating memorable PlayStation gaming experiences through the blue-eyed lens of Astro Bot himself.
Overall, Astro Bot is a solid 3D platformer with a cosmic focus, in the tradition of the Super Mario Galaxy games and aesthetically similar to Sony’s own LittleBigPlanet. But where Astro Bot shines the brightest is when it leans into the past, present, and future of PlayStation’s gaming library and revives the experiences that has made Sony such a major fixture in the industry for nearly 30 years.
A Love Letter to PlayStation’s Legacy
The PlayStation celebration themes within Astro Bot are cooked directly into the game’s story, with the Astro Bot mothership resembling a disc-based PS5. After the mothership is wrecked on a desert planet and its key components stolen away by mischievous aliens, Astro Bot sets out on a smaller ship, modeled after the PS5 DualSense controller, to rescue his friends and recover the mothership parts to repair it and make it space-worthy again.
Even beyond this premise, the PlayStation callbacks come in fast and furious, from Astro Bot occasionally using a PlayStation VR headset to the intrepid character traversing chasms via PlayStation controller cords. In lesser hands, all of these references and design choices could’ve been distracting and come off as cloyingly corporate self-congratulations but, in the hands of Team Asobi, they rarely seem intrusive once you understand the assignment.
The most effective PlayStation nods of all are the V.I.P. Bots based off of PlayStation’s vast gaming library, stretching as far back as games released in the ‘90s for the original PlayStation. Of the 300 Bots to rescue in the game, over half of them are V.I.P. Bots, nodding to the first-party properties that Sony is actively developing and promoting, such as Horizon and The Last of Us, as well as older properties Sony hasn’t worked on in years, like Shadow of the Colossus and PaRappa the Rapper. Even the initially Japanese exclusive title Vib-Ribbon gets its own V.I.P. Bot, showcasing the breadth of history covered in Astro Bot.
This extends to third-party properties too that, while not entirely exclusive to Sony consoles, each played a major role in helping make PlayStation the juggernaut brand it is today. Konami’s Metal Gear Solid and Silent Hill characters appear prominently as V.I.P. Bots, as do characters from Capcom’s Resident Evil and Devil May Cry. With the prevalent presence of these properties that have been released and found success on other companies’ platforms, Astro Bot isn’t just playing the Sony hits, but everything that made PlayStation great.
Blending Past and Future
More than just a parade of cameos, there are also a number of themed levels in Astro Bot, including several that serve as epilogues after defeating each world’s boss. Each of these levels are modeled after major Sony gaming properties, and even bring back the familiar soundtracks from those games, in addition to introducing even more V.I.P. Bots for Astro to find and rescue. While retaining the core gameplay of Astro Bot, these levels also replicate the gameplay sensibilities of the properties that they’re homaging, in some cases going as far as to feel like a bonafide revival of a game series.
If you’re looking for an epic hack-and-slash adventure, there’s a God of War: Ragnarok level that keeps things family-friendly while evoking Kratos’ war against the gods. The gun-toting action-adventure of Uncharted gets its own level, with Astro channeling his inner Nathan Drake as he fends off baddies while exploring ancient ruins long-lost to nature.
Among the most surprising is a level modeled after Ape Escape, a Sony franchise dormant since 2010, with Astro hunting down errant chimps around the level. Launched in 1999, Ape Escape was one of the biggest successes in the final years of the original PlayStation, blending puzzle-solving with 3D platforming, making it a natural choice for homage in Astro Bot. Though Ape Escape would spawn a line of sequels and spinoffs, even getting directly referenced in Metal Gear Solid 3 and LittleBigPlanet, Sony hasn’t done anything substantial with the franchise since PlayStation Move Ape Escape for the PlayStation 3 in 2010.
What Astro Bot essentially does in its homage to the franchise is give players a brand-new Ape Escape level, with Astro taking the physical appearance of Spike, the recurring Ape Escape protagonist. Armed with Spike’s trusty Monkey Net, Astro tracks down Ape Bots hiding throughout the level and catches each of them, the familiar music and visual presentation of Ape Escape further setting the mood.
That players receive a new Ape Escape experience in 2024, let alone one within the levels and worlds of Astro Bot, is a prime example of the labor of love and close eye for detail that Team Asobi has brought to revisiting classic Sony properties in their game. Playing a perfectly pitched homage to Ape Escape, 14 years after the franchise’s last full game, feels like reuniting with an old friend that you’ve fallen out of contact with. These moments come multiple times in Astro Bot, not always to the same level, but definitely with a similar level of love and care.
The epilogue level that invokes the first Uncharted game turns Astro into a mini version of Nathan Drake and sends him out into a tropical environment to explore ancient ruins. Without downplaying the 3D platforming gameplay, this level suddenly shifts the action to a third-person shooter with players strongly encouraged to take cover during firefights, matching Uncharted’s signature style. While Uncharted is by no means a dormant Sony gaming property, the inventive ways Team Asobi has devised to translate familiar gaming experiences across the PlayStation library through Astro Bot is highly commendable.
Moments like these are pure magic for longtime PlayStation gamers, especially those who have gamed on Sony consoles since the very beginning. From seemingly forgotten franchises to properties that have been leading Sony’s dominance in the industry in the past several years, there is something for gamers of every generation in Astro Bot.
A Gaming Example to Follow
What makes these homages and allusions all the more effective is that it feels like a rarity in today’s games industry. PlayStation is honoring its past at a time when many other publishers have left their own beloved properties by the wayside. Whether because of licensing issues or just lack of corporate interest, a growing number of titles in the industry are at risk of becoming lost media, inaccessible to gamers unless they have less than legal means, like fan-made emulators, to run games that haven’t been restored and remastered for decades. Platforms like GOG and Sony’s own growing library of classic PlayStation games on PlayStation+ are big steps in the right direction, but still only feel like half measures.
Civilization II, one of the most groundbreaking and influential strategy games in the history of the medium, is unavailable to play on modern gaming platforms, including PC. Games for handheld consoles, like the Virtual Boy, PlayStation Portable, or Game Gear are incredibly difficult to emulate and have become highly sought after collectors’ items due to their scarcity. There is a larger game preservation problem at hand in the industry and games like Astro Bot speak directly to the importance of remembering and protecting legacy for both established franchises and standalone titles alike.
Outside of compilations, Capcom hasn’t done anything with Mega Man in six years, or anything with Dino Crisis in over two decades, the latter essentially replaced by the Monster Hunter series (which are excellent, but we want dinos too). Apart from Super Smash Bros., Nintendo hasn’t really touched Star Fox in seven years while the Mother RPG series hasn’t had a new entry since 2006. Konami may have rediscovered its love of the Silent Hill and Metal Gear franchises (at least in terms of remaking the greatest hits), but what of its other big heavyweight, the Castlevania series? At least Symphony of the Night does get a nod in Astro Bot.
The gaming industry simply doesn’t have a great track record when it comes to celebrating its own history. In playing Astro Bot, one wonders what a Nintendo, Microsoft Game Studios, or Capcom variation on this game would look like – and no, games like Super Smash Bros. or Overwatch don’t count. Rather than a tie-in to a third-party game like Fortnite or hastily repackaged bundle of past games, like the never-ending number of Sega collections for its Genesis-era titles, Astro Bot breathes new life into venerable and forgotten franchises by reviving the familiar, tried-and-true elements of successful games while presenting them in a way that’s more accessible for modern gamers. That takes a lot of work, attention to detail, and, most importantly, a deep love for the source material. That love of the game is Astro Bot’s true X-factor and the thing all publishers should keep in mind when revisiting older games and established franchises.
Astro Bot celebrates decades of gaming legacy, contrasting history with contemporary joys through the use of familiar faces and gameplay experiences. Like the PS5 mothership that Astro is rebuilding, if any one component of the game was subpar – the 3D platforming, technical presentation, level design – the whole thing would collapse under its own weight. Fortunately, buoyed by its love letter to an industry and console line, the game fires on all cylinders and reinstills that sense of gaming wonder.
Astro Bot is out now on PlayStation 5.
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