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Astro Bot director wanted to fill a gap missing since PlayStation Studios 'went from making cartoon games' to 'mature, hyper-realistic games'
Team Asobi, developers of Astro Bot, aimed to fill a gap in PlayStation's portfolio by creating family-friendly, colorful games, a niche that other studios abandoned as they shifted towards mature, realistic titles, and the result, Astro Bot, quickly became the highest-rated game of 2024, surpassing even Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.
Astro Bot developer Team Asobi wanted to fill a gap in PlayStation's portfolio that went missing when some of its studios pivoted to "mature, hyper-realistic games."
Team Asobi just released its latest platformer about the adorable mascot who's traversing across almost 30 years of PlayStation history to save the console's most-loved icons - or bots cosplaying as said icons - and Astro Bot quickly dethroned Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth as the year's best-reviewed game. But part of its charm comes from the fact that it feels like a game PlayStation used to make decades ago.
In an interview with VGC, studio president Nicolas Doucet explains that "as the audience of PlayStation grew, a lot of these [PlayStation studios] went from making cartoon games to a little bit more mature, hyper-realistic games."
Naughty Dog, for example, became the console maker's golden goose with the early Crash Bandicoot games before steadily taking itself more and more seriously with Jak and Daxter, Uncharted, and then, finally, The Last of Us. Sucker Punch went from Sly Cooper to Ghost of Tsushima. Insomniac Games went from Spyro the Dragon to Marvel's Spider-Man.
"That's when we at Team Asobi as a studio decided that we really wanted to fill that gap, that used to be the gap filled by other studios 20-25 years ago," Doucet continues. "That's really where we want to be: all ages, colorful etc. Even if we made a horror game, it would be a funny horror game."
That focus seems to have worked out for Team Asobi. "Astro Bot doesn't just deliver on the promise and potential displayed in PS5 pack-in demo Astro's Playroom, but soars above and beyond to serve up a near-perfect platformer to rival – and possibly surpass – the best of Super Mario's Mushroom Kingdom romps," Gamesradar+'s Astro Bot review says.