Your comments, positivity and kind words have carried us through the months and continue to warm our little robotic hearts. Alongside APP TD88 , we are pleased to say that owners of the PS5 Pro will be able to enjoy an improved version of Astro Bot featuring a constant best resolution while still running at 60 frames per second. And one person who’s clearly having fun with Astro Bot is no other than Finn Wolfhard, featured alongside Astro in a fun new video.

There are a few different reasons for this, the first of which is that Astro Bot’s core gameplay is as solid as titanium. If you’ve played any other Mario-esque platformer, you know what to expect here, but Team Asobo has really created a game that feels astoundingly satisfying to play, even in the most minute ways. You have absolute control of Astro’s jumps and punches, with smart features like lasers that come out of his feet opening up even more options for gameplay. The simplest way to describe Astro Bot is honestly to compare it to Mario, as it employs a similar kind of “world” structure. Astro Bot is filled with standard platformer tropes, but it pulls off a sense of wonder in their presentation.

To access these new levels, you will need to have completed the main game. Critics praised the gameplay, level design, and content, with some comparing the game to Nintendo franchises, particularly the Super Mario series. Astro Bot won multiple awards including Game of the Year at the Game Awards 2024, the 21st British Academy Games Awards, and the 28th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards. As Astro, the player embarks on a quest to save lost robots, retrieve parts for the PlayStation 5 mothership, and defeat the alien Space Bully Nebulax. Much like the previous title Astro’s Playroom, Astro Bot uses DualSense controller features including adaptive triggers and haptic feedback. There’s a jungle planet, a volcano planet, and worlds of pirates, ghosts, and gardeners.

Moving on to the audio design of the game, everything from its music, sound effects, and what not is superb. They fit in perfectly with the game’s vibe and atmosphere, which is really hard to find a fault as it even uses the DualSense speakers impeccably. Astro Bot hides over 300 secret bots, including 195 cameo bots from other games spanning PlayStation’s long history. Astro Bot is such a wonderful experience, it makes me question if I’ve ever felt this much pure joy playing other games I’m fond of. From its tight design to its incredible visuals to mechanics that feel carefully tested to generate as much pleasure as possible, Sony has its new standard bearer for platformers.

The sheer variety Astro Bot delivers is breathtaking, and like I said, there’s not a bad level in the bunch. It’s a riot of collectibles and hub world distractions, and it’s thought about your time, too, and how to make the best of it. Team Asobi further drills down on the toy-like charm of gaming by fully committing to the DualSense’s unique features. I feel pronounced haptic feedback when I hop into a stormy level and feel each raindrop in my palms. When I turn into a metal ball to stop a ceiling from crushing me, I can feel the resistance of the adaptive triggers pushing back on me. I even use the microphone to blow into a giant horn, a kind of delightful gameplay interaction that even Nintendo has moved away from in recent years.

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. It looks absolutely stunning and perfect for a family-friendly platformer. The whole aesthetic and atmosphere of the game are enhanced by its distinct and recognizable designs. To add to this, the game’s callbacks to its older and other IPs by integrating character designs into Astro Bot are amazing as well, since they’re instantly recognizable the moment you see them.

More Guides

As you explore galaxies to find your fellow robots and unlock new parts of the game, you’ll find a lot of familiar elements, only to see them executed in quirky and delightful ways. Just about every platformer has an ability that lets you shoot across longer distances, but none of them let you do it by strapping a bulldog to your back. Many of the bots — 173 of them, to be precise — are dressed as characters from PlayStation games past and present. They’re digital collectible figures, Funko Pop alternatives for 30 years of PlayStation gaming, celebrating almost every Sony property you can think of. Naturally, you’ll find Ratchet and Clank, Kratos, and Nathan Drake here; third-party heroes with a PlayStation connection, like Metal Gear Solid’s Snake and Ryu and Ken from Street Fighter, are also represented.

Later on, you’ll also unlock the Dual Speeder Garage, where you can personnalise Astro’s controller plane, and the Changing Room to switch up Astro’s look to outfits collected in the Gacha Lab. The levels in Astro Bot feature a staggering amount of interactive elements from jump pads, blocks, and platforms through to what appear to be decorative objects like plants, trees, and even animals. You’ll want to try and hit, nudge, press, and jump on absolutely everything.

Astro Bot Is Born

While the game has many exhilarating moments, Astro Bot’s desire to showcase PlayStation gear and characters can feel like it’s holding the game back from being something unique. I don’t know if I’ve ever played a platformer before where I enjoyed literally every single boss fight and level, but I can confidently say that about Astro Bot. The stages constantly surprise and delight as they take full advantage of the PS5’s hardware. Astro Bot levels are beautiful, brought to life by genius art direction and some of the best graphics on the PS5. It all feels so alive thanks to how the DualSense controller reacts to what players see on the screen, with Astro Bot making great use of the DualSense’s haptic feedback and speaker. It’s a shame that most other PS5 games don’t even come close to utilizing these features to their full potential.

With the basics on lock, Team Asobi lets players focus on Astro Bot’s wildly inventive level design. In one level, I get a power-up that lets me shrink Astro down to the size of an ant on command. That leads me through a fantastic puzzle-platformer gauntlet where I need to shrink down to climb into a lock or hop up a tree’s leaves. Another level drops me in a casino and puts a time-slowing PSVR on Astro’s head. I use that ability to freeze a giant slot machine as it rains down chips, turning them into platforms. Ingenious one-off mechanics like this feel like they could serve as the basis for an entire game; that’s how well-crafted they are.

Whether for licensing reasons or just to make a fun guessing game, the bots are given coy names like Dad of Boy (Kratos), Spinning Marsupial (Crash Bandicoot), and Immune Survivor (The Last of Us’ Ellie). There are some deep cuts that will have all but the most encyclopedic of PlayStation fans scratching their heads. They gradually fill up the desert crash site, turning this hub world into a bustling Sony museum. In a way, Team Asobi — Sony’s go-to tech demo developer and maker of Astro’s Playroom and the upcoming Astro Bot — has been doing this kind of preparatory work for the last 12 years. From 2012 to 2020, the Tokyo-based outfit made small games, often distributed for free, whose purpose was to demonstrate the interactive potential of Sony’s hardware. The Playroom demonstrated the PlayStation Camera; The Playroom VR and Astro Bot Rescue Mission the PlayStation VR headset; Astro’s Playroom the PS5’s DualSense controller.

If you have a seminal PS1 game in your mind or a semi-obscure PS2 horror game, there’s a good chance it’s represented here. Aside from a lack of Final Fantasy representation, Astro Bot pays its respects to several generations of formative games. A handful of excellent stages even go one step further by paying tribute to some key games themselves — expect gaming history nerds to go positively feral over them. Astro Bot is an action and platformer game for the PlayStation 5 which features Astro. Jump on your Dual Speeder and explore tons of planets, and meet up with iconic PlayStation characters across the game. Astro’s adventure takes him to various galaxies full of planets to explore as he tracks down his scattered crew.