The unbridled joy I felt when firing up a game I’d never seen before came flooding back to me. I remembered why games were so important to me growing up and how they shaped my creativity. Naysayers will say that no childhood memory comes from sitting in front of a TV, but that was never true for me. Platformers have so long followed in the footsteps of Mario, with so many titles trying to emulate what the mustachioed plumber has achieved. Astro Bot’s utterly overflowing creativity and ingenuity make it one of the first platformers that feels like it can stand outside the long shadow cast by Mario.
Astro Bot is a glimpse of what Sony wants you to understand that it believes that it is. It has the boundless cheer of a group of people coming together and trying to be their best selves. All in all, Astro Bot is definitely one of 2024’s best games, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it were considered to be the year’s best.
While “toy” has become a derogatory term when talking about video games, Team Asobi sees no shame in embracing it. I can see that when I find a cardboard standee in a construction site level. I poke my head through it, only to summon a flock of pooping pigeons. There’s no tangible reward for doing it as it’s not a tracked collectible; it’s just a purely entertaining moment that gets an honest laugh out of me. What elevates that beyond a bit of throwback nostalgia is that developer Team Asobi may be the most skilled studio working today when it comes down to game feel. Part of its secret weapon is Astro’s hover jump, which lets him float in the air a bit longer before landing.
You can enjoy them in the moment, and it’s not until afterwards you realise it’s an empty sugar high. Across that lifetime of experience, I think Astro Bot is worthy of a medal. The ever-growing install base of the PS5 has allowed many players around the world to enjoy Astro’s Playroom. Filled with references to hardware throughout PlayStation’s history and boasting an abundance of cameo appearances from popular characters, Astro’s Playroom celebrated PlayStation’s history in a unique way. This made Astro not just the new kid on the block, but established the bot as a character integral to the PlayStation brand.
When this got canceled, Kutaragi went to Norio Ohga (Sony’s CEO at the time) with the proposal of making Sony’s own console. A follow-up to the PS5 pack-in game Astro’s Playroom, it’s a colorful platformer starring an adorable robot named Astro. 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.
Detailed in a PlayStation Blog post, Tick-Tock Shock is the first level available now. Subsequent stages — Thrust or Bust, Cock-A-Doodle-Doom, Hard to Bear, and Armored Hardcore — will be available each following Thursday at 6am Pacific / 9am Eastern / 2pm UK. The fact that Team Asobi’s games have the potential to become someone’s first game is something that Doucet takes seriously. But utilizing the uniqueness of hardware is something that Team Asobi has always been good at – arguably more than any other PlayStation studio. Once that’s accomplished, head to the Crash Site and press the big red button to initiate the boss battle. As for the is-it-fun thing, Astro Bot’s solution is even more winning.
I went into it with high expectations thanks to Astro Bot Rescue Mission and Astro’s Playroom, and it not only met my expectations, but completely exceeded them. It’s the best 3D platformer since Super Mario Odyssey hit the scene in 2017 and will be remembered as an all-time classic of the genre. Everyone with a PS5 should get their hands on this game ASAP, and hopefully, Team Asobi gets to continue making masterpieces. A new batch of five levels were added in July 2025, adding five new cameo bots including a couple of Final Fantasy characters. There are jokes about tech demo ducks in here, then, but there’s also the sense the whole thing is, on some level, a huge tech demo.
Astro Bot – Five New Weekly Speedrun Levels And Special Bot Updates Begin Rolling Out Today
At Team Asobi – Sony’s inhouse development studio best known for the Astro Bot series – artwork along the walls depicts PlayStation’s 30-year journey. Master Onion is the secret 301st bot, the last one you’ll unlock in the game. Tell us in the comments section below, and check out our Astro Bot guide for lots more.
Stephen has been part of the Push Square team for over six years, bringing boundless enthusiasm and a deep knowledge of video games to his role as Assistant Editor. Having grown up playing every PlayStation console to date, he’s developed an eclectic taste, with particular passion for indie games, arcade racers, and puzzlers. He’s also our go-to guy for Sonic-related matters, much to his delight/chagrin. It contains special challenge levels, and each of them contains a Special Bot to unlock. Astro Bot is an adventure platformer where you control Astro as he explores six galaxies and over 80 levels across 50 planets to find his scattered crew. The crash site hub world has its own areas to explore and is packed full of quirks, such as eventually letting you customise your ship and outfit.
If they make Rescue Mission compatible with psvr2 I’ll play through that again as well. @get2sammyb people can do what they want but I wouldn’t say it’s totally fine. Part of the enjoyment of games like this is discovering stuff and figuring out puzzles. Using a complete walk through from day one just reduces the amount of enjoyment you can have. Astro Bot has a full set of PS5 Trophies for you to collect as you make your way through the game. As part of our Astro Bot guide, we’ve got a page dedicated to helping you earn every Trophy, including the coveted Platinum.
This is one of the only PS5 games that really feels like it was built around the DualSense, and it shows. Plenty of stages require patience, awareness and a high degree of platforming skill, though resets are generous and failure doesn’t cost anything other than your time. Completionists will have a great time with this one — there are so many secret passages and hidden bots to find, most of them cleverly tucked away and easily missed unless you’re actively looking for them. On 100vip co , speedrunners should enjoy Astro Bot as well, since it offers planets of platforming challenges with incredibly responsive controls. These are just three examples, but quite literally every level in the game has some kind of unique idea or design.
Latest News On Astro Bot
Watch Episode 1, and continue the Astro journey with the 5-episode behind the scenes series. Dive back into supersized adventures with ASTRO and this limited-edition controller! Go behind the scenes in this five-part series with Team ASOBI to discover how their philosophy of “All About PLAY” created a super-sized space adventure game for everyone. With your new powers, battle out a whole new roster of quirky baddies and huge bosses.
Players have long expected more DLC, however, as a number of unreleased bots appeared in the Astro Bots credits. Featured here are licensing credits for Rayman, Worms, Assassin’s Creed, Beyond Good & Evil, Croc, and Tomba, potentially revealing which five special bots will be released alongside these levels. That being said, Armored Hardcore is almost certainly a reference to Armored Core, while Cock-A-Doodle-Doom is likely Doom, so bots from these franchises are also likely. According to Jamie Smith, Team Asobi’s Principle Animation Director, the animations of Astro and other characters in the game have been drastically increased.
It’s a mark of how confident the game is that its personality shines so clearly through the costumes it dons. It can be tough to critically gauge how ‘good’ a platformer is sometimes. With the exception of the truly bad ones, most of them achieve a decent baseline level of fun, because fun is all they’re going for.