As rumoured, Sony announced a brand new Astro Bot, simply called Astro Bot, at their latest State of Play event and its coming this year.
The new game showed off Astro himself cruising around on some sort of glider or plane made out of a Dualsense controller before leaping off for some platforming action. Highlights include the little robot running around with a dog companion on his back, becoming a giant version of himself and sporting a heap of different costumes relating to classic PlayStation IPs.
It seems to take Astro’s Playroom, which was included on all PS5s, and has made it into a full game that still acts like a love letter to all things PlayStation. At one point, Astro turns into a giant PS5 space shuttle to fight a boss.
A PlayStation blog post penned Nicolas Doucet, studio director at Team Asobi, offers more details.
“Since making an appearance at the launch of PlayStation 5, Astro has introduced many players to the magic of PlayStation.” wrote Doucet. “We received a ton of heart-warming comments about how much fun the game was, how it utilized the DualSense wireless controller in fun ways and how it paid tribute to 25 years of PlayStation history. From the bottom of our robotic hearts, thank you very much for all your support!”
According to Doucet, the game spans 6 galaxies and 80 levels, and Astro will face down 70 new types of baddies.
“Among the many new powers, you will find Barkster, the Bulldog Booster that lets you air-dash and smash through enemies, metal and glass, the Twin-Frog Gloves that offer long-range punching and the ability to swing and the Giant Sponge that lets you suck up water from the environment to grow huge and cause massive (and slightly moist) destruction. Combined with improved Astro controls, these new powers take the Astro platforming experience to new heights, while remaining accessible for all.”
Quite frankly, this was the highlight of the 30-minute event. It looks fantastic, and I can’t wait for it to launch on September 6th for PlayStation 5.