Unlike most of Astro’s previous outings, this is a full-sized game, with over 50 planets for you to explore. It’s available to buy in physical and digital form, plus in a digital deluxe edition. Read on to see what comes in each edition, how much it costs, and more. And in case you’re wondering if it’s any good, you can put those questions aside.
IGN, among other major gaming outlets, praised ASTRO BOT’s revolutionary approach to platforming. The game’s success at The Game Awards 2024 ceremony marks a new era for PlayStation Studios and Team ASOBI. You’ll need a PlayStation 5 console and sufficient storage space (approximately 50GB). The game is optimized for play on 4K displays but supports all PS5-compatible displays. From Astro Bot Funko Pop figures to limited edition collectibles, show your support for Team Asobi’s masterpiece.
The small robot must save fellow bots from danger, totaling 300 bots to rescue throughout the game. You tend to start writing lines in your head when compiling a review, and one that stuck with me early was to call Astro Bot ‘the best platformer since Super Mario Odyssey’. Then I played a little more and started to think ‘maybe it’s better’. All I know is Astro Bot is a contender for the all-time crown in a genre that has felt a little neglected (especially by Sony, who once nurtured it to greatness) in recent years. It’s so much more than a PlayStation history lesson, and in climbing above those expectations, becomes a piece of PlayStation history in its own right – with Astro Bot, the PS5 may finally have arrived. It can be tough to critically gauge how ‘good’ a platformer is sometimes.
Across the game’s dozens of levels, you’ll see many abilities like these, and in nearly every case, they are a resounding success. Hardcore PlayStation fans will likely be both pleasantly surprised and disappointed to uncover what characters are included and how much love their franchises receive in Astro Bot. After rescuing Bot crewmembers, half of whom resemble beloved characters from PlayStation games, they return to the game’s hub world, and as more are uncovered, it grows into a playground for the rescued to occupy. As the player progresses, they’ll unlock new pathways and cosmetics not just for Astro but for the PS-themed Bots.
Levels take only five to 10 minutes in most cases, but are overflowing with personality. Robot animals climb trees along the periphery or jump out of the ocean far beneath the levitating worlds you explore. Everything constantly moves around you, imbuing every level with life beyond the scraps you’ll engage in with the game’s enemies. Each level’s theme is brought to life with aesthetic assets and design ideas that strengthen their themes. While more of an extension of its previous titles than something all-new, it sounds like Team Asobi has cooked another stellar game. With over 80 stages and more than 15 power ups, players that wanted more of Astro’s Playroom will unlikely be dissatisfied.
Astro Bot Ps5
But what I really love about Astro Bot is that it’s also just filled with bits and pieces. Stuff to roll around in, stuff that forms little piles that can be kicked about. I’ll open a chest and there will be lumps of gold rolling around at the bottom. In one completely dazzling level I was given a magnet, and soon I was vacuuming up metal bars by the dozen and spray cans by the hundreds, all ready to form a bait ball I could fling at a distant target. For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Astro Bot’s gameplay and story. Upgrade your lifestyleDigital Trends helps readers keep tabs on the fast-paced world of tech with all the latest news, fun product reviews, insightful editorials, and one-of-a-kind sneak peeks.
Perhaps an in-game encyclopedia would be useful, briefly describing the robots dressed in non-familiar outfits. Such a feature would make the game an even greater treat for fans of the Japanese console. There was already luck8 to love about Astro Bot before, with it being one of the best PS5 games of the year, but Team Asobi didn’t stop there.
Expert, Exclusive Gaming Analysis
Astro’s adventure takes him to various galaxies full of planets to explore as he tracks down his scattered crew. This part of our Astro Bot guide goes over each and every level in the game, highlighting where to find all collectibles and more. Every level brings something new, and the controls feel perfect. The bright graphics and little PlayStation references make it even better.
But even when Astro Bot leans into this side of the series, it’s genius. One level has you transform into Kratos, Leviathan Axe and all, solving puzzles and freeing the likes of Thor and Freya from their snowy perils. When you become Drake, you get a pop gun for a completely fresh style of level that sees you finding hidden relics and climbing trees or shooting pirate skeletons to save Sully and Sam. Astro Bot also does some things I’ve never seen other games use well, or even at all. The blending of gyro to control your rocket ship as you blast into levels before seamlessly switching to traditional play is a far cry from the clunkiness of early PS4 titles using the trackpad out of extremely obvious obligation.
I just wish there were one or two more of them, but perhaps I’m being greedy. Over 150 of them in fact, as characters from PlayStation’s vast library of games have made their way into Astro’s world in the form of other bots. There are the ones you’d expect like Lombaxes, tomb raiders, and a certain rapping dog but, delightfully, some are plucked from the more obscure end of the scale.
Throw a complete lack of checkpoints into the mix as well, and these are easily some of the toughest tasks in Astro Bot, with a final level that’s a real tough nut to crack. It’s a non-stop gauntlet of quickfire threats that made me piece together everything I had learned up until that point in a frantic, but still fun test. It’s clear from the very first frame of Astro Bot just how much love and reverence Team Asobi has for the history of Sony’s consoles and their library of games. You choose a new save file by selecting one of three original PlayStation memory cards and are then thrust into a scene taking place on your PS5-shaped mothership.
They even announced that the game will be receiving free DLC in the near future. If there’s one thing to criticize, it’s the exclusivity and the need to buy a PS5 to experience this masterpiece. Everyone should be able to experience this kind of fun, as with the amount of games there are, it’s only a few games that really go the distance. As a platformer, Astro Bot is definitely the best to come this year. The fun factor is unparalleled for a game of this genre, despite it’s obvious simplicity. The biggest thing to take away from the game is how well it uses the DualSense to its advantage.
One is the protagonist of Sucker Punch’s upcoming Ghost of Yotei (which is receiving a special State of Play). The developer teased in a blog post that completing the new galaxy “might lead to something really cool,” so players will have to dive in and see what surprises are in store. Astro Bot just received its latest free update, adding five more levels and new bot cameos to Team Asobi’s Game of the Year-winning platformer.
The axe functions similarly to how it does in the actual God of War games, meaning Astro can use it as both a weapon and as a tool to freeze objects for puzzle-solving purposes. I won’t mention any of the other games that are given this kind of treatment in Astro Bot as part of the fun is getting to the end of the galaxy and seeing what’s next, but trust that each one of these stages is incredible. The new game, simply called Astro Bot and developed (like the others) by Team Asobi, kicks off when a group of robots’ PS5 mothership is attacked, scattering the robots throughout the galaxy. Your job as Astro is to go around to all the planets and collect your friends. The games have lots of fun platforming to execute, with grappling hooks and hover-jumps and all kinds of fun things. There are also plenty of alien and robotic enemies and bosses to take on.
