Think PlayStation in 2024 and your mind probably goes to Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War – those eye-wateringly big-budget epics that define the firm’s modern era. But once upon a time PlayStation was synonymous with the mascot platformer: Jak and Daxter, Crash Bandicoot and Sly Cooper, to name just a few. In Astro Bot, PlayStation appears to have finally found a new mascot.
The adventurous little robot has already starred in the best PlayStation VR game, and if you own a PS5 then you probably played Astro’s Playroom, the superb pack-in game that comes preloaded on every console. But PSVR never really took off, and Astro’s Playroom was over in a few hours. Now here’s a fully-fledged 3D platformer, which couldn’t have come at a better time.
Tentpole AAA exclusives are thin on the ground, and Sony’s quest to find a live service Fortnite rival stumbling out of the blocks, so this gleeful celebration of PlayStation’s past – which also capitalises on the PS5’s power – is an irresistible explosion of playful creativity and throwback fun.
Astro’s turf
Unlike a certain moustachoied plumber, Astro doesn’t have any missing monarchs to worry about – just a destroyed PS5-shaped mothership. Its core components and crew have been blasted into various galaxies, but luckily Astro still has his trusty Dual Speeder (shaped exactly like the DualSense controller) to track them down.
Astro Bot is a traditional level-based platformer, and developer Team Asobi has imagined a cosmos not dissimilar to Super Mario Galaxy‘s. Which is to say that pretty much anything goes. Its 50+ planets are wildly inventive and colourful creations: you’ve got your classic tropical island setting, underwater level and spooky graveyard, but you’ll also explore a giant space casino, a floating bathhouse, and leap between humongous floating inflatables.
It might be a family-friendly affair, but Astro Bot uses every drop of the PS5’s plentiful power, resulting in one of the most technically impressive games on the system. The pin-sharp visuals are stunning and there’s a decidedly Nintendo-like attention to detail that rewards exploration. Giant robots that fill the screen took my breath away and I often stopped just to admire the quality of the animation. Every frame of Astro Bot exudes joy.
A word too for the equally arresting score, which cheerfully bounces between everything from top-tapping hip-hop to country and smooth jazz, and will no doubt feature regularly in my rotation when it hopefully makes its way to music streaming services.
Bot what you came for
Sony’s great hope for the remainder of 2024 might look like an interactive Pixar flick, but that only gets you so far. For a 3D platformer to really stand the test of time, the controls need to be perfect, and I’m delighted to report that Team Asobi has absolutely nailed it. With the groundwork already laid in Astro’s Playroom, our robotic hero is a perfectly weighted creation. Lighter on his feet than than your average automaton, and while lacking Mario’s acrobatic move set, his foot jets mean he’s just as well-equipped for jumping.
Astro is also a pretty capable fighter. He can punch, unleash a charged spin attack and take out baddies from above with a quick blast of his jets. Enemy types range from bog-standard blobs of gloop and spiked helmet-wearers to electric guitar-thrashing aliens and long-legged freaks in visors that rudely boot footballs at you.
It’s by grabbing the power-ups discovered in each level that the titular robot really comes into his own. Spring-loaded boxing gloves can launch larger enemies into the air, another power-up slows time, while one ability transforms Astro into a balloon with a squeeze of the R2 trigger. In one level Astro becomes a sponge, absorbing pools of water used to create new platforms, and if you played Astro’s Playroom you’ll be familiar with the Monkey Climber power-up, which allows him to climb otherwise unscalable walls with ease. My favourite ability (which I won’t spoil) plays with size and scale in a way that put a stupid smile on my face the first time I encountered it.
These abilities are also key to defeating the awe-inspiring, multi-stage boss clashes. Every one of them is a memorable encounter with a colossal foe that I don’t dare spoil here. In normal levels it only takes one hit to knock Astro down, which is occasionally annoying, but wisely the developers chose to give him a few extra hearts for boss levels. None of them halted my progress for long, but I was happy that they weren’t a cakewalk either.
Talking Sense
Pre-loading every new PS5 console with Astro’s Playroom was something of a masterstroke from Sony, as the pack-in game was the perfect showcase for the then-new DualSense controller. Astro Bot goes even further, with not a single component of the PS5’s pad that isn’t given a workout.
The haptics ensure you feel every footstep and changing terrain, sound effects leap out of the built-in speaker, and the trigger tension changes depending on the action or power-up in use. Motion controls are utilised when flying the Dual Speeder and in a ship-fixing minigame at the end of each world, and occasionally you’ll even blow into the controller, Nintendo DS-style.
Gyro controls can be disabled if you’d rather not use them and you can switch off the speaker if all that close-up nattering irks you. The DualSense’s battery life, which is pretty rubbish at the best of times, will certainly thank you for it. But I couldn’t help but be charmed by the novelty of it all, especially when so few developers have opted to really take advantage of Sony’s high-tech pad.
Playing Astro Bot often reminded me of Tearaway, the (also brilliant) PS Vita game that went to great lengths to show people all the grin-inducing things you could do with its native hardware, but ended up being an outlier in the console’s library. Criminally, we never got a Tearaway sequel either. Hopefully that won’t be the case here.
PS I love you
Astro Bot is a top tier platformer in its own right, but you’re going to have an even better time with it if you have a personal history with PlayStation. Each level has (often very well hidden) bots scattered about; sometimes you’ll hear one crying for help as they attempt to swat away a baddie, while others await you in secret areas. All you need do is give them a friendly punch when you find one and they return to your crew.
A big chunk of the 300 missing bots look identical, but the ones you really want in your collection are the ones cosplaying as characters (marked by a special icon so you know how many are in that level) from across PlayStation’s 30-year history. Naturally, there are Crash Bandicoot and Kratos bots to track down, but Team Asobi gets seriously niche with its cameos too. Each bot you find is sent back to your ship’s crash site, which gradually expands to become something of an outer space PlayStation museum.
The bots can be summoned, Pikmin-style, to form ladders and rope swings that enable you to reach new areas, and eventually you’ll unlock stores that let you change the colour scheme of your Dual Speeder and encourage Astro to join in with the fancy dress fun. Can a Clicker from The Last of Us ever be considered cute? Play this game and find out.
Some PlayStation heroes are also incorporated into gameplay in a grander sense, with an early example paying homage to a classic PS1 platformer involving badly-behaved monkeys, while another level hands Astro the iconic weapon favoured by an aforementioned moody Greek god, and does not disappoint. Iconic franchises are well served here, but my favourite of these showpiece levels, which I won’t spoil, revives one of the more experimental games from the oddball-friendly PSP era, in what is an ingenious nostalgic treat.
Astro Bot verdict
Strip away all the DualSense wizardry and celebratory PlayStation goodness and Astro Bot is still one of the best 3D platformers in years, one that can genuinely be talked about in the same breath as some of Mario’s best outings. The levels are varied, intricately designed (especially later on) and beautiful to look at, the power-ups are great fun, and there isn’t a single duffer of a boss fight in the game. The game is also bursting at the seams with secrets, while miniature challenge levels serve the hardcore platformer fans.
But all that extra stuff is also a core part of the game’s appeal. Team Asobi makes the DualSense feel like the funnest toy you’ve ever owned, and at the end of the generation I have no doubt that we’ll look back on Astro Bot as the game that made the best case for it.
In an otherwise quiet end-of-year period for PS5 exclusives, Astro Bot is the game the console needs right now.
