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. It’s that good, putting Team Asobi up there with the greats.
Astro Bot is an explosion of colour and creativity that constantly flips your expectations on its head. When it hits, you’ll feel the urge to stand up and cheer in excitement – but let’s step back and break this down into chunks to better understand why it’s so impressive. The formula for creating great platform games always involves carefully aligning disparate pieces to create a cohesive and engaging whole – and Astro Bot is no exception.
At its core, Astro Bot is built on the technical foundation of Astro’s Playroom. Using its own in-house technology, the design objective seems clear – to deliver a smooth platforming experience at 60 frames per second while dazzling the player with physics and pyrotechnic effects at every corner. From a technical perspective, the execution is virtually flawless. It’s not something we can often say about new games but in this case, the experience is so bulletproof and polished that it feels as if the team perfectly achieved what they set out to do.
