Astro’s Playroom is one of the most pleasant surprises I’ve had in all my gaming years. With Astro Bot coming out, I jumped into it again to check out the recent free content Team Asobi cooked in preparation for the full-sized sequel and finally unlock that (rather easy) platinum trophy.
The little bitty game remains a true joy to play and replay; it’s just a fantastic demo of the PS5 hardware’s capabilities and a remarkable celebration of the PlayStation brand’s past and possible future. Roughly four years later, however, that promising future hasn’t happened, and that makes me sad. By and large, Astro’s Playroom suggested a return to Sony’s most off-beat era when it came to first-party releases. Instead, we’ve seen more problems than ever before hitting the platform and the brand as a whole due to a grave overreliance on AAA releases and live-service projects that just aren’t paying off (with Helldivers 2 being an almost miraculous exception).
On a surface level, Astro’s Playroom works so well because it’s lean and charming. Its art direction is cute and crystal-clear; the level design across the entire thing is tight and no section overstays its welcome; and the sound design and original soundtrack are as lovable as everything happening on the screen. Simply put, it’s just impossible to hate.
If you dig a bit deeper (and have at least some basic knowledge of PlayStation’s long history), you quickly understand why it might be one of Sony’s most important first-party releases ever. There’s a strong reverence for the brand’s past that goes beyond dropping fan-favorite cameos or winks at IPs we love; it successfully evokes buried memories and is fully aware of what people loved about past PS generations. While it may be considered “brand synergy” firing on all cylinders, all in the service of selling PS5 systems, it also comes off as a genuine celebration of what we love about PlayStation and the bonds we’ve established with fictional worlds over time.
Related: All Pre-Order Bonuses & Editions for Astro Bot
In that regard, Astro’s Playroom (and likely Astro Bot) was a far more satisfactory celebration of the PlayStation brand and its long history than PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale. But perhaps its biggest strength – back in 2020 – was how it made us really excited about all the possible IP revivals that could come with a new PlayStation generation. Moreover, it suggested that the DualSense could become a major selling point of the PS5 if developers took their time to tinker with it. Fast-forward to 2024’s second half, and we’re stuck in a weird limbo of mostly third-person action-adventure games taking forever to come out from SIE’s studios, third-party “limited exclusivity” deals keeping this ship afloat, and PS5’s unique hardware and peripherals being truly used by only like 5% (being generous) of the third-party games that come out.
Sure, Astro Bot is looking fantastic and will surely make the powers that be rethink if shutting down Japan Studio and other small teams was a good idea (it wasn’t). If we look back at PlayStation’s golden era, it’s easy to notice how the brand stayed healthy over long periods of time: Offering a compelling, truly varied first-party catalog that pleased both Western and Eastern players. Almost every genre was properly represented and evolved alongside the platforms. Nowadays, many of us have begun to think maybe Uncharted and The Last of Us’ combined success broke Sony’s thinking when it came to first-party development forever.
It’s hard to directly argue against the push for more action-adventure games that look expensive and play great. In fact, most of SIE’s output in that arena is pretty amazing and explains why they’re still miles ahead of the Xbox team when it comes to quality and consistency. That said, trends come and go, and players are harder to please than ever before, especially now that most AAA releases demand their undivided attention. Ironically, SIE’s AAA output – for the most part – isn’t responsible for many of the industry’s current woes, yet they’re bearing the brunt of market-related earthquakes regardless.
Astro’s Playroom already felt like a small gem the moment it came out. Over time, it’s only become even more of an anomaly, and the fact SIE greenlighted a sequel should be celebrated – it’s one of 2024’s biggest shocks, and I hope players back it up. PlayStation is now in an entirely different place from the one that was suggested and even teased in 2020, one that’s much more boring and depressing. I can only assume the writing on the wall is being read by Hermen Hulst and his pals, yet the current production model has locked PlayStation into this difficult position where the PS5 generation (now half-done) seems almost unsalvageable due to the ballooning dev cycles and costs.
I strongly hope executives look at Astro Bot and its likely success and learn the right lessons from it. It shouldn’t be an anomaly nor a one-time, big-budget celebration of PlayStation’s history, but a reminder of what the brand used to mean and everything it’s left behind and sacrificed in order to relentlessly chase realistic worlds and cinematic storytelling that can only get the medium and the industry so far.
Astro Bot releases on September 6, 2024.
Published: Sep 4, 2024 03:00 pm